Raising Funds for local & International charities

This GlobalGiving project is one of the various ways we raise money for our Benevolent Fund, from which we are able to support deserving local, national and international charities.

Helped by the generosity of you, our GlobalGiving supporters, since our last report in March we have made the following donations:

• £200 to Barrow Farm Riding for the Disabled, a charity we support on a regular basis. This supported their summer ‘Driving Holiday’, enabling 6 disabled carriage drivers to experience driving at Ashfields Carriage Driving Centre which included lessons with Minta Winn, an international carriage driver.
• £1,000 to Billericay Food bank, towards purchase of a van to collect and distribute food donations. Previously the food bank had to make do with use of a minibus which was less than ideal for their purposes.
• £100 to Lennox Children’s Cancer Fund, a local charity we support annually, which provides practical, financial and emotional support to the families of children living with cancer.
• £230 to provide a day out at Old Macdonald’s Farm activity centre for children with behavioural difficulties from Ramsden Hall Academy, as part of Rotary’s ‘Kids Out’ programme. Several club members participated in this event, supporting the staff who were responsible for the children.
• £100 to Friends of Lake Meadows towards the costs of their annual photographic competition. This is an annual event open to the whole community, adults and children, and we provide this sponsorship each year.
• £200 to St Luke’s Hospice, another charity we support regularly, in response to their ‘Nurses Day’ appeal.
• £1,580 to Rotary’s own charity, the Rotary Foundation. This donation is funded entirely by donations from club members, each of whom commits to give at least $100 each year to the Rotary Foundation. Clubs can seek grants from the Rotary Foundation to help fund major projects and we were awarded £5,750 towards our Borewells project from this source.

 Thank you for continuing to support this project.

This GlobalGiving project is one of the various ways we raise money for our Benevolent Fund, from which we are able to support deserving local, national and international charities.

Helped by the generosity of you, our GlobalGiving supporters, since our report last November we have made the following donations:

• £100 to Essex & Herts Air Ambulance, a charity we support on a regular basis.
• £387.50 to Orbis, an international charity providing state-of-the-art eyecare, plus training to local ophthalmic practitioners, in countries where this expertise would not otherwise be available, by means of an adapted airliner complete with an operating theatre and lecture hall. We support Orbis each year by means of a sponsored blindfolded walk by the President.
• £100 to Lennox Children’s Cancer Fund, a local charity we support annually, which provides practical, financial and emotional support to the families of children living with cancer.
• £2,241.73 to End Polio Now, Rotary’s campaign to rid the world of Polio. This money was largely raised through our GlobalGiving Christmas Quiz microproject and you can read our separate report on that microproject here
• £600 to Mary’s meals, an international charity which provides daily meals to schoolchildren in some of the poorest parts of the world. This money was raised through our weekly wine raffle and our donation was matched 100% by the UK government.
• £200 towards the travel costs of a local Girl Guide who has been selected to attend the World Jamboree to be held in South Korea next year.
• £554 to fund completion of the 10^th well delivered by our Borewells Project in Kenya.

In addition to the above, the Ukraine crisis has clearly demanded a response and we have drawn on some of our reserves to supplement the following donations:

• £500 to Billericay Mayflower Rotary towards the cost of an additional lorry being driven to the orphanage they support in Moldova to help with the additional demands placed on the orphanage by refugees from Ukraine
• £500 to Médecins Sans Frontières, to support the work they are doing in Ukraine.
• £750 to the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain, towards support for Ukrainian refugees arriving in the UK.

 Thank you for continuing to support this project.