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Ludlow Rotary Club's IMMEDIATE actions .....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".
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Then, with the willing assistance of TESCO at Ludlow, Roy organised a collection there on 18th January.
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Pictured are Rotarians John Stinton and Roy Thompson in collecting mode at Tesco, Ludlow.
The generous people of Ludlow donated £1,800 with more to follow afterwards ....!
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Roy said, "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.
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The result? We were out collecting again in Ludlow on Saturday, 30th January".
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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
District 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 Amanda 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.
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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
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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 ....
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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
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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.
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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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