Purple for Polio

Thousands of crocuses planted by members of Taunton Vale Rotary are bursting into bloom all across the town and surrounding areas.

The purple crocuses have been planted over the past several years in local parks and open spaces as part of the Rotary Campaign to rid the world of Polio.  Profits from the sale of the corms go to help fund the cost of vaccinations.

Rotary members have contributed nearly £2 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly 3 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease.

 As a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we've reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979.

Today, polio remains endemic only in a few rural parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  But the vaccination campaign has to continue until the disease is eradicated.

In many places where record keeping is difficult, children who’ve been vaccinated have a small purple dot of dye placed on the end of a finger – hence ‘Purple for Polio’.

(The photo above shows the crocuses around the Stonegallows ‘stone’ in Bishops Hull and below in Taunton’s Vivary Park).

Purple crocuses in Vivary Park<br>