Saturday 24 October was World Polio Day, and to celebrate I was honoured to be invited to support Richmond Rotary in the mass planting of 6000 purple crocus corms.
This wasn’t some random act of horti-madness; it was done in an act of hope. There’s a very strong link between polio and COVID-19 – they are both virulent viruses which are transmitted by saliva and other body fluids.
Polio affects more than 300,000 children every year, and those that survive could be paralysed for life. COVID’s track record thus far is the demise of one person in ten infected. We now have a vaccine for polio; we wait in hope for one for COVID-19.
So on a wet and windy Saturday a socially distanced team of volunteers from Richmond’s GoodGym, some Richmond Rotary members, including it’s president and Auntie Planty (that’s me!) dug and slithered our way on a muddy hillside beside the river to complete the task. The Mayor of Richmond planted the last few corms.
As the project is called ‘The Wheel of Hope’; the corms were planted in the shape of the Rotary Club’s wheel icon, and if the squirrels keep their distance, when they flower for the first time in February 2021 (fingers crossed) that we’ll have a vaccine for COVID-19
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