On Sunday October 24th, the Rotary Club of Southampton will mark World Polio Day, celebrating historic progress toward a polio-free world while urging the community to join us in helping end this paralyzing but vaccine-preventable disease.
Southampton Rotary Club members are taking action on World Polio Day to raise awareness and send funds raised over the past year to support an end to polio, a disease that still threatens children in parts of the world today.
When Rotary and its partners launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, there were 350,000 cases of polio in 125 countries every year. We’ve made great progress against the disease since then. Today, polio cases have been reduced by 99.9 percent, and just two countries continue to report cases of wild poliovirus: Afghanistan and Pakistan. And we remain committed to the end.
With polio nearly eradicated, Rotary and its partners must sustain this progress and continue to reach every child with the polio vaccine. Without full funding and political commitment, this paralyzing disease could so easily return to polio-free countries, putting children everywhere at risk. Rotary has committed to raising US$50 million each year to support global polio eradication efforts. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged to match that 2-to-1, for a total yearly contribution of $150 million.
The Rotary Club of Southampton today marks our annual donation to the Rotary Foundation Polio Plus campaign, giving $2000 to the cause from funds raised during the year.
We will be meeting in Southampton Rotary Club’s Perkins Park on Sunday October 24th at 2pm, gathering around our End Polio Tulip Garden that was planted last year as a beautiful spring reminder of our commitment to polio eradication.
About Southampton Rotary: Southampton Rotary has served this community for over 80 years. We are a group of friends, leaders, and problem-solvers who unite and take action to create lasting change in our community and around the world. We are people of action who have used our passion, energy, and skills to improve lives through service. From promoting literacy and peace to providing clean water, protecting the environment and improving health care, Rotary members are always working to better the world or as we like to say doing “DO-GOODERY!”
