More and more Rotary clubs across the east Midlands are joining the campaign to turn empty aluminium cans into helipads for hospitals.
Leicester Novus got involved after our friends at the Rotary Club of Shepshed suggested we listen to the driving — or maybe flying — force behind the campaign, ex-RAF helicopter pilot John Nowell who then became an Air Ambulance pilot. Shepshed had installed a collecting bin in the town and were getting a steady stream of cans which are being melted into ingots by prisoners at Stocken Prison.
John explained to Novus members that all too often patients had to flown to more distant hospitals because some did not have onsite landing grounds for Air Ambulance helicopters. Neither Leicester Royal Infirmary nor Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham have the facility.
Novus started collecting cans with great support from Sonal, the sister of our President Elect Sarita Shah. Sonal owns the Pizza Parlour in Belgrave Gate. Other friends and family also started pitching in.
Bradgate Rotary gave hundreds of cans, as you can see above. And after our most recent meeting we received even more from Sonal, and from other members.
Novus is one of four Rotary Clubs from across the east Midlands who have pledged to work together to apply for a grant to buy even more collecting bins.
One of those four, the Rotary Club of Sleaford Kesteven this week ordered two bins. That club wants Leicester Royal Infirmary, with its new Accident and Emergency Department to be able to airlift critically-ill patients straight into the hospital. The other clubs are Sleaford and Lincoln Colonia.
Leicester Novus wants to buy at least one collecting bin. To do so, members have pledged to hold a street collection around Leicester Clock Tower on Saturday, October 5. If you are passing, please drop some money in our collecting bucket!
We will have a foot-operated can crusher and some bags so if you want to donate — and crush — some cans, we can process them, too.
Thousands of cans have already been donated, reducing the need to mine more bauxite, reducing the amount of litter in our cities and countryside and increasing the chances that seriously-ill patients will survive because they get to hospitals more quickly.
If you want to donate cash or cans you can. Just go to the “Contact Us” tab at the top of this page and e-mail us.
We need a million cans for each helipad. It is a lot, but Rotarians have proved time and time again over more than a century that by working together they can set hugely-ambitious targets which they can meet.
Last edited: 04:40 on Saturday, 14.09.2019
