Rotary imagines a world free from polio

The Boulder Rotary Club joins Rotary clubs throughout the world in raising $100 million this fall to end polio, in response to a $225 million challenge grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

District 5450 in central Colorado has set a goal of more than $300,000 for this fall’s campaign. For the first time Rotary is broadening its reach beyond members and asking others to help raise money to fight the dread disease, which although 99.4 percent eliminated worldwide, still ravages communities in Asia and Africa.

This challenge is Rotary International’s second major fundraising push for polio, after raising $100 million in a previous challenge from the Gates Foundation. Bill and Melinda Gates have contributed $355 million in challenge grants to Rotary’s Polio Plus campaign, which began in 1985.

The campaign this time will seek to educate the public that the polio virus still exists and can quickly return to countries that are now polio free. It’s just a plane flight away. Thanks to Rotary’s previous efforts, the disease is endemic in only four countries: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan, with fewer than 2,000 cases each year. But those cases will be the most difficult and most expensive to eliminate due to conditions in those Third World countries.

The district has prepared a new web site, www.endpolio.com, where Rotarians, their friends, families and the public can learn about polio, its history, and what is being done to eradicate the crippling disease that preys on children. With its fundraising, Boulder Rotary Club honors its late member Ty Kaus, a wheelchair athlete who fought the disease for many years. Contributions can be made on this new web site.

For more information, go to www.endpolio.com or contact Boulder Rotary at 303-554-7074.



For more information on Rotary, see www.boulderrotary.org or www.rotary.org.

BOULDER ROTARY CLUB
5390 Manhattan Circle, Suite 101 Boulder, Colorado, 80303
303-554-7074 Rotary@roycearbour.com
Fax 720-304-3255 www.BoulderRotary.org


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Contact: Sue Deans, 303-579-9580