Spring highlights Group's crocus planting initiative

Hundreds of crocus have been planted in the grass opposite the offices to brighten the area but the beautiful spring blooms are also part of the Rotary Club's Purple4Polio initiative to stamp out the crippling and potentially deadly infection.

They were planted by members of the Vale Floral Group and some Vale Douzeniers in November as part of a wider and on-going parish improvement drive. 

Sponsored locally by Appleby, Purple4Polio is raising funds and awareness to help remove the disease globally and is having a lot of success.

There were 125 polio endemic countries in 1985 and hundreds of new cases every single day. In 2020, however, there were only 441 cases in the entire world.

Purple inspiration
When a child receives life saving polio drops on mass polio immunisation days in many countries their little finger is painted with a purple dye so it is clear they have received their life saving vaccine.

This was the inspiration for the purple crocuses and the motivation for the Vale Floral Group to plant thousands of corms here and elsewhere in the parish by hand to support this important project to improve global health.

• Where next?
  If parishioners have any suggestions about areas in the parish that could be brightened and improved, or if they wish to join the floral group we'd be pleased to hear from you. Please contact [email protected] or ring the office on 244155 Monday - Friday 10.00 - 13.00