Our charity work

Christmas time is when local charities join us with Santa as his sleigh tours local roads to the delight of children. Shared with our fellow Shepperton Aurora Rotary Club, the sleigh can be seen in our shopping areas and around our village streets in late November and December.   As we tow our sleigh, local charities join us and collect money door-to-door.

During Covid we collected for the local food banks and are continuing this as the need remains.

Putting on fund-raising providing social support in the community through coffee mornings at Shepperton Library and offering various opportunities for charities to fund-raise and promote themselves. Our wine tasting in January 2023 was popular and will be repeated.

On a completely different note, we organise the Remembrance Sunday commemorations for both Shepperton and Sunbury villages. 

Together with the Shepperton Aurora Rotary Club, we have a ‘Rotary Village’ within Shepperton Village Fair on the second Saturday of June every year, where we host stalls for eight other charities as well as running our own stalls with games and opportunities to get to know our clubs.  Our Hogwartz children’s ride is a must for children at the Fair!  

To support youth in the local community we have annually donated dictionaries to primary schools, sponsored tree planting and art competitions with local schools and volunteered as ambassadors for vocational experience days in secondary schools.  Our vocational work also recognises the success of small companies and charities locally through our annual Business and Community Awards.  

Polio vaccination of a child using a dropper

Internationally, our club has identified small charitable projects in countries where we can make a real difference and follow their progress. These have included, for example, schemes with schools and villages for sanitation and clean drinking water.   On a wider front, through Rotary’s national and international organisations, our annual membership fees continue to contribute to Rotary’s campaigns to eradicate Polio worldwide.  Over the last 35 years, Rotary members, working with communities and charities around the world, have contributed more than US$2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to the fight to end polio.  More recently, Rotary in the UK and around the world, has played its part in supporting the plight of families and children in Ukraine with donations of clothing, Christmas gifts, toiletries, electricity generators and other essentials, as well as direct funds.