Press Release

Pound Challenge creates hundreds of wheelchairs!

31 October 2006

Rotary District Governor Norman Jones put members on the spot with a challenge the minute he took up office in July this year.

Here is a pound coin – he said to each Club President. Turn that into wheelchairs by October!

Last weekend Norman had enough money raised to order two shipping containers crammed full – 560 wheelchairs – from £28,000 gathered in the four months.

District 1120 is supporting The Wheelchair Foundation that delivers the wheelchairs to locations all over Africa and Eastern Europe where they give new freedom to people of all ages.

“I said to the Rotary Clubs we are the business and professional people so we should be able to make those few pounds grow, “said Norman, who is from Wateringbury.  “I also took along to club meetings a DVD showing how having a wheelchair can change a person’s life by giving them, for the first time, mobility and a share in community life.
 
“The challenge got the business approach going but the cause has touched hearts and the result is magnificent with money still coming in.”

One Club President hired a garden for a pound and then held a barbecue evening that raised hundreds. Another Club sponsored their President to wheelchair his way up and down the local high street. The Rotary Clubs of Broadstairs in Kent and Bexhill in East Sussex have each raised over £2,500.

Norman is also gathering together the ideas that produced the cash and aims to publish them so that other clubs and organisations can gain from Rotary’s fundraising ways.