Blue sky, no rain but church giving flows towards needy

The Stewart Memorial Fountain in Kelvingrove Park burst back into life recently as children from Dowanhill Primary School’s Eco and Fair Trade Committee, rotarians from District 1230 and senior Episcopalian churchmen celebrated a gift of clean water and a £12,000 donation to help the people of countries such as Haiti.
Blessed with a blue sky, The Very Reverend Dr Gregor Duncan, Bishop-elect of the Diocese of Glasgow & Galloway and his predecessor, the Right Reverend Dr Irdis Jones, presented Gordon McGlone, the chairman of the board of trustees at Aquabox, with the proceeds of their congregation’s Lenten fundraising from 2009.
Mr McGlone, who is a member of Rotary Club District 1220 at Wirksworth in Derbyshire, said each Aquabox, a robust plastic tank filled with purification equipment, can be used to purify up to 1100 litres of water.
‘We started Aquabox in 1992 and it’s run by the Rotary Club in Wirksworth,’ said Mr McGlone. ‘We wanted to find a way of bringing aid to people who needed it and particularly to provide facilities for safe drinking water. Without that, water-borne diseases like cholera and typhus cause all sorts of problems, so we sat down and we created Aquabox.
‘An Aquabox will provide humanitarian aid in a filter kit and that kit will be used to provide more than a thousand litres of clean water, and that’s sufficient for a family of four to survive for about four months.’
Dr Jones said: ‘I wasn’t just the bishop of the diocese, I’ve also been involved with Rotary for many years. So, I was aware of the Aquabox scheme and also the drastic need for clean drinking water, not just from appeals but all the year round from India, Africa, even South America.
‘There are people who cannot get clean drinking water, which means children die of diarrhoea or some other infectious disease.
‘There is a kind of Biblical link with water, the fountain of life, but it was a response to an ongoing need all the year round.’
Dr Jones added: ‘The response from the congregation was very good – £12,000 is as much as we’ve raised for any appeal. It caught the interest and the imagination of the people in the diocese.’