Raising Funds for local & International charities

Thank you for your continued support for this GlobalGiving project. It 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 July we have made the following donations:

• £2,087 to TEECH (Telecoms Eastern European Challenge), a charity that installs sanitary ware into schools, orphanages and residences for the elderly in Moldova. It also delivers aid, including clothing, toys and shoes to nearby communities, many of which are under pressure supporting Ukrainian refugees. Our donation helped fund the costs of transporting this aid from the UK to Moldova.
• £1,000 to The Smile Train, a charity that provides simple but life-changing operations for people with cleft palates living in resource-poor communities around the world. As well as performing the operations, the visiting specialists train local doctors in the techniques, so that operations can continue once the team returns to the UK.
• £250 to Quilters Junior School, to cover postage costs for their inter-generational pen pals project, whereby pupils exchange letters with elderly Billericay residents and then entertain them for afternoon tea at the school at the end of the year..
• £600 to Mary's Meals, a charity which provides school meals every day for over two million children across East Africa. We support it through the proceeds from a weekly wine raffle at our meetings. The children must attend school to get the meals, which helps ensure they can learn their way to a brighter future. 

Thank you once again for your continued support.

Thank you for your continued support for this GlobalGiving project. It 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:

• £750 to the RAF Benevolent Fund in memory of Club member and WW2 pilot Norman Wilson, who died last year.
• £4,889 to End Polio Now, Rotary’s campaign to rid the world of Polio. This money was largely raised through our GlobalGiving ‘Help END POLIO NOW Christmas Challenge 2022' microproject and you can read our separate report on that microproject here
• £393 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 through a sponsored blindfolded walk by the President.
• £200 to Hearing Help Essex, a local charity dedicated to helping people with hearing difficulties get the best from any hearing assistance equipment they have been provided with.
• £300 to Homeless Action Resource Project (HARP), a charity based in Southend on Sea that aims to help people escape from homelessness.
• £220 to St Luke’s Hospice, this being the proceeds of an annual collection we do to support this, our local hospice.
• £500 to Aquabox, an international charity we support regularly, that supplies equipment for producing safe drinking water in areas where the local water supply has been destroyed or contaminated.
• £250 to Barrow Farm, a member of the Riding for the Disabled Association and a local charity we support annually, which provides horse riding and carriage driving facilities for children and adults with special needs and disabilities.
• £500 to Essex & Herts Air Ambulance, a charity we support on a regular basis.
• £100 to Médecins Sans Frontières, following a lunchtime talk by one of their volunteers, an anaesthetist, telling us about some of his first-hand experiences of working in war zones and disaster relief.
• £1,782 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 every year to the Rotary Foundation.

Thank you once again for your continued support.