Polio

Rotary District 7610

Rotary Foundation Committee

Click on photo to view announcement of the Gates Challenge Grant.

"I was in a slum in East Delhi, and I held a nine month old girl named Hashmin in my arms. My dad and my sisters were with me, and we talked to Hashmin’s mother in the courtyard outside her home. Hashmin was dressed in a beautiful bright orange dress. She obviously didn’t understand why people were poking her legs and looking so serious. But she’ll never be able to kick a ball around, never be able to play hide and seek with her friends, because she has polio.

"As I held Hashmin, I thought, We can end this."

Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft

Gates Challenge Grant

Rotary's $200 Million Challenge

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $255 million to Rotary International in the global effort to eradicate polio, bringing the total committed by Rotary and the Gates Foundation to $555 million.

In response to the new $255 million Gates Foundation grant, Rotary will raise $100 million in matching funds. In November 2007, RI received a $100 million Gates Foundation grant, which Rotary committed to match by raising $100 million.

The two Gates Foundation challenge grants now total $355 million. Rotary International’s matching effort in response is called Rotary’s $200 Million Challenge, which must be completed by 30 June 2012.

The $255 million grant is one of the largest challenge grants ever given by the Gates Foundation and the largest received by Rotary in its 104-year history. Rotary will spend the grant in direct support of immunization activities carried out by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which is spearheaded by RI and its partners, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF. Rotary will distribute the funds through grants to WHO and UNICEF.

The participation of Rotary clubs and individual Rotarians in Rotary’s $200 Million Challenge remains crucial to its success. Rotary has raised over $90 million toward this amount.. Each club is being challenged to organize a public fund raiser annually for the next three years.

Polio eradication has been Rotary’s top priority since 1985, with more than $1.2 billion contributed to the effort. Gates praised Rotary for providing the volunteers, advocates, and donors who have helped bring about a 99 percent decline in the number of polio cases. “The world would not be where it is without Rotary, and it won’t get where it needs to go without Rotary,” he said.

"The final hurdle still is ahead," said RI President John Kenny.

Polio Eradication

Rotary, along with its global partners, has launched the largest peacetime army of volunteers and activists in the history of the world for one purpose: To eradicate forever from the face of the earth the devastating disease of Polio.

The Purple Pinkie Project

The Rotary Club of Lake City, Florida, developed an innovative way to raise funds for polio eradication, and, in the process, to raise public awareness about Polio: PurplePinkieProjectHandbook . The Rotary Club of Lake City called upon its local school children to help raise funds to immunize other children from polio. When each school child donated at least $1.00 (the approximate amount Rotary International estimates is needed for one immunization), Lake City Rotarians painted their pinkie purple with the same Gentian Violet used throughout the world on eradication day as symbol of one child saved from polio. Of course, more than one finger was painted as some children brought in multiples of $1.00. Children were drawn to this “purple badge” in their desire to help save other children from polio. Over 3,000 children from all of the community’s twelve schools participated. Teams of Rotarians furiously painted pinkies and collected $3,000 from the children, in just over two hours.

District Governor Horace McCormack encourages each Rotary Club in District 7610 to hold a Purple Pinkie Project or to undertake another community-based fund raising project to support Rotary's global polio eradication and to help meet the Rotary $200 Million Challenge. Rotary District 7610 and its clubs have set a goal of raising $107,000 for polio eradication during the 2009-2010 Rotary Year.

Help End Polio

Polio's History

Rotary's Involvement with Polio

Donate to PolioPlus via text message

Donate Now

The Devlyn Amigos Polio Web Site

Example of Press Release for Purple Pinkie Initiative