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" Service Above Self "

THE ROTARY CLUB OF LUDLOW, SHROPSHIRE.

HAITI EARTHQUAKE

SHELTERBOX  APPEAL

 

FOR THOSE IN NEED

Will you help us help them?

  2,000 ShelterBoxes are on the ground in Haiti, with many more to follow.

Breaking news.......Ludlow Rotary Club has just financed its TENTH Shelterbox since the Haiti disaster - all made possible by the generosity of Ludlovians, including  a magnificent donation of £1,000 for two Shelterboxes by the staff and students of Bedstone College.      More below .......

Donations by post or by hand.

  • Anyone wishing to support this appeal is invited to send a cheque, made payable to "Ludlow Rotary Club" to Rotarian Terry Curthoys, Treasurer, Rotary Club of Ludlow, 7 Raven Lane, Ludlow SY8 1BW.
  • Alternatively you can leave a cheque , made payable to "Ludlow Rotary Club", at the Ludlow Town Council Offices, c/o Veronica Calderbank, Town Clerk, Ludlow Town Council, either at the Buttercross Office or The Stable Block, Stone House, Corve Street,  Ludlow, Shropshire  SY8 1DG.
  • GIFT AID    If you're a UK taxpayer, and you fill in our Gift Aid form, Rotary can claim an extra quarter (or more) of your donation amount from HM Revenue & Customs (the tax man!).  This increases your donation and it costs you nothing! So please, click here to print off a Gift Aid form and include it with your donation.  

Ludlow Rotary Club actions so far .....As soon as reports were received of the earthquake which struck Haiti, the Rotary Club of Ludlow responded by commissioning 2 Shelter Boxes, to be despatched immediately.   “Our first action was to authorise a cheque for £990.00, to purchase two Shelter Boxes to send instant aid to the people of Haiti”, said Rotarian Roy Thompson, Chairman of Ludlow Rotary's International Committee.   “Shelter Box is a Rotary International disaster relief project that delivers emergency shelter by air to people affected by disaster worldwide. On arrival, the SHELTERBOXES are taken direct to the disaster area,  where they are delivered direct to those in need".

First, with the willing assistance of TESCO at Ludlow, Rotary organised a Collection at the store on Saturday 16 January . Our picture shows Rotarians John Stinton and Roy Thompson busy collecting.

  •  The generous people of Ludlow gave over £1800, with further money coming in afterwards..

Our next action was to contact Ludlow Town Council to see if by working together, we could reach a wider group of people through a street collection, to ask for donations to enable us to BUY MORE SHELTERBOXES.  The result?  We were out collecting in Ludlow on Saturday, 30th January.

  • Thanks to the generosity of Ludlow folks this raised over £900.   Then we received another £500 in donations sent to Rotary via the reception points at South Shropshire Disctrict Council.  

Then Bedstone College came up trumps ......

Bedstone buys two shelter boxes through Ludlow Rotary Club for the Haitian appeal

On hearing of Rotary International’s appeal for money to buy “shelter boxes” for the Haitian disaster, Mrs Ananda Richards, a Housemistress at Bedstone College,  decided that the College should raise money to buy one box – within seven days she had mobilised the school to raise enough money for two boxes and the cheque for £1000 was handed over to the president of the Rotary Club of Ludlow, Rtn Michael Evans, at the Club’s meeting on Tuesday evening.

“This is a positive way in which we can help people who have lost everything” said Mrs Richards, “and doing it through Rotary means that we know that the boxes will meet the people who need the help, and reach them quickly” she added.

 Scholars raised money in a variety of ways including three young musicians performing a lunch time Rock Concert and making a “reasonable” charge for admission.  Pictured  are Zac Salt (Knighton), Oliver Cockburn, (Aston Munslow) and William Jones (Plaish) performing in concert

We say a very big "THANK YOU" to all of you who gave so wholeheartedly, also to everyone who worked so hard to make the Appeal such a success.  "Well done" ... one and all.

Read about SHELTERBOXES below ....

 

As featured on national television at the start of the emergency, SHELTERBOXES are held at Heathrow airport ready for immediate dispatch by air to disaster areas.  They consist of a sturdy box which contains life-saving equipment for ten people, including a 10 person tent, thermal blankets, cooking stove and survival tools, and water purification kits.  The box itself is lightweight and waterproof and can be used for a variety of purposes - from water and food storage containers to a cot for babies.

Already responding to the scenes of destruction in Haiti, a Shelter Box Response Team (SRT) left on Saturday with two SRT members from the USA and one from the UK leading the response. Each box costs an average of £490.00 and contains a weatherproof ten-person tent with privacy partitions that allow one or two families to be housed immediately.

 See more pictures & info on Shelterboxes web site



ShelterBox was founded by Tom Henderson, a Rotarian and former Royal Navy search and rescue diver.  

He saw that the aid response to most disasters was in the form of food and medicine to help people survive the immediate aftermath.

Little or no assistance was given in terms of proper shelter to help them through the first few days, weeks and months as they tried to rebuild their lives.

ShelterBox was launched to fill that void.

  

2,000 ShelterBoxes are now on the ground in Haiti with more to follow.

In 1999, Tom started researching the idea, sourcing equipment and twisting arms to get the project off the ground. His persistence paid off in April 2000 when ShelterBox was launched and the Rotary Club of Helston-Lizard in Cornwall adopted it as its millennium project. Little did they know that it would become the largest Rotary club project in the world, with affiliates in eight countries.

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