Children at Broadmead School take part in Purple Pinkie day

Members of one of Croydon’s longest established charity groups have teamed up with children at a local primary school to raise money and awareness to help eradicate polio.

Croydon Rotary Club was celebrating the founding of the movement in 1905 by staging a “Purple Pinkie for Polio Day” on February 23, and made a return visit to Broadmead Primary.

Last autumn, the Rotarians and the school in Selhurst planted crocus bulbs as part of the polio campaign. Club members returned last month to see some of the work the schoolchildren had undertaken since.

The school produced a large poster made up of crocuses.

Rotary Club members and children and staff at Boradmead have worked together on polio projects

Children then dipped their little fingers in a purple paint before putting their fingerprint inside the flower. Each class had a separate crocus, so every child in the school was able to contribute.

Polio is a crippling and potentially fatal disease and children under the age of five are at the greatest risk. While there is no cure, there is prevention by giving children a vaccine which can protect them from the disease for life. When the vaccine is given to children in those countries where polio is still endemic, they dip their little finger in a purple dye to show they have received the vaccine – the “Purple Pinkie”.

Working together with the headteacher, Sarah Hunter, and with the school staging a cake sale, they raised more than £100 for polio charities.

The Croydon Rotary Club’s next major fund-raising event is it annual golf day, at Farliegh Golf Club on April 24. Click here for more details of all their activities.

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