When Geoffrey Barton moved to Aireborough Rotary following the sad closure of the Pudsey Club his wife Heather also retained her membership of Inner Wheel with a similar move. This soon enabled their enthusiastic work with the Aquabox charity to continue without a break.
Geoffrey was soon encouraging Aireborough’s members to budget for a fixed yearly target of how many Aquaboxes for which they could source materials, fill boxes and transport to Wirksworth. For this was a charity established by a single Rotary Club, Wirksworth, but supported by Clubs throughout the land.
Over the years the contents of the boxes changed and improved with the inclusion of technically advanced water filters for hospitals, families and communities growing in importance.
Boxes are now filled solely at Wirksworth but Aireborough Rotary continues to be an Ambassador for Aquabox demonstrating the efficacy of the Aquabox concept and its water filters to whatever audiences they create the opportunity to address.
Last week Rotary and Inner Wheel members from Aireborough made a visit to Wirksworth to view the new Aquabox Headquarters and to demonstrate their continuing support for this invaluable charity led by Geoffrey and Heather who are now both Paul Harris Fellows.
Aireborough’s International Chair, Janet Kerr reflecting on a marvellous day reported ‘we were given a tour of the impressive new Headquarters first viewing the packing area and having the opportunity to talk to the dedicated band of Wirksworth volunteers. Next, we saw the construction workshop where filter pumps for Haiti were being assembled by yet more volunteers and we learned that 200 Aquaboxes had been sent to Yemen the previous week and that Haiti was the current destination for increased Aquabox aid. Our final act was to hand over a cheque from Aireborough for £500 as part of our planned continuing support’.
The Aireborough Club recently received a grant from our Yorkshire and Lincolnshire District to purchase an Aireborough logoed gazebo and Aquabox will be featured at our next two outside events to spread the word to the public at large.