Congratulations to the Sunbury & Shepperton Rotary Club for a great achievement at the Hampton Court Flower Show. Not only did they make it through the hottest week of the year, setting up, manning the stand and then taking all apart again. They also secured a silver for their efforts.
Peter Routley said “We are absolutely delighted with this award and maybe we have made Rotary Britain & Ireland history by presenting Rotary to an audience of 130,000 people!”
The garden was called “Through the Generations” and was designed and built by Rotary member Jacqueline Stratton.
The inspiration was Stephanie Frost, a 20 year old from Sunbury who suffers from a heart muscle disease. The disease has limited Stephanies’s mobility, but not diminished her zest for life. She can be seen locally, out and about on her electric scooter, her multi-coloured hair reflecting her bright and cheerful personality.
Jacqueline Stratton built the garden with the objective of making it accessible to someone in a wheelchair or mobility scooter and Stephanie could happily whizz around this pretty garden. Jacqueline also started ‘Jacqueline’s Garden’, a non profit organisation promoting gardening to children and building gardens for the disabled to enjoy without restriction.
This is the first time Rotary have built a garden at an RHS Flower Show. They wanted to draw attention to both ‘Jacqueline’s Garden’ and to the many other charities they support, which enrich the lives of the disadvantaged or disabled.
This exercise underlines Rotary’s belief that society works better when communities work together.