Last Wednesday (4th January) Pershore Rotary heard that Gary Fowles had arranged to get up to ten vitally needed 3kw petrol generators to send to the Ukraine. Lynne Raymer, one of our Rotary members and who knows Gary, asked us if we had the funds to be able to help Gary reach his target of £4,100 (£400 per generator plus some costs) needed by Thursday - just the following day!
Fortunately, not only did we have £400 in our emergency fund, but when the members heard that Gary was still short of the money for three generators, the members donated another £800 themselves in just 24 hours so that all ten available could be sent.
The picture above was taken this last Monday (9th January) by Gary as the shipment was loaded off ready to go. Gary said "The two volunteer drivers are very self-effacing characters but agreed to a couple of images. It is a potentially dangerous journey but they do it for no advantage to themselves. Very genuinely generous men."
Gary Fowles has organised a campaign to help the people of Ukraine who are suffering due to the war. Gary has generously linked with us to raise funds and drive generators over within the next couple of weeks.
Healing Hands, a charity based locally helped with the whole project.
Susan Stretton of Healing Hands said
"We are currently regularly driving across to Ukraine delivering vital and urgent supplies of humanitarian, medical and surgical aid to help the people trying to survive not only this horrendous war against civilians but also the freezing cold Winter, power supplies destroyed by Russia which means no heat, light or hot food and drinks. It also affects the water and sewage.
People are living underground in basements and cellars in the dark and cold. Some children haven't been able to surface for months.
Generators can and will change their lives more than you can imagine. Think how we feel if we have a power cut for an hour or two. How inconvenienced we are.
Each generator costs approx £400-£600 to purchase. We also have the costs of getting them across to Ukraine. We give our time for free and cover our own expenses where we can.
Please donate what you can to help us get the 8 [now 10] reserved generators across on our next trip January 10th. You could really be saving lives.
Thank you to Gary Fowles for organising this campaign on our behalf."
* Photos taken by Gary Fowles on 9th January in Evesham.
Pershore Rotary is proud of the contributions made by the generous people of Pershore to help the Ukraine over the last year. Our cash collections, together with contributions by George (see https://www.pershorerotary.club/post/george-s-community-service-award ) came to nearly £6,300 to the DEC Ukraine appeal and to Shelterbox Ukraine Project.