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·           RI efforts began in 1979, with vaccine for 6 million children in Philippines Islands.

 

·           Philippines Islands effort was a successful 6 year test of Rotary exploring and developing its capacity to help deliver vaccines to children.

 

·           New Year’s Day, 1986, Tournament of Roses Parade float telecast to 125 million viewers around the world – Rotary publicly announced to a global audience that it had embarked on a program to immunize the world’s children against polio, and had set a 3-year goal to raise $120 million.

 

·           May 1988 – RI Convention in Philadelphia – announced $220 million had been raised. By the end of June, 1988, $247 million had been raised, and 85% of Rotary’s 23,000 clubs (including the South Lake Tahoe Rotary Club) had participated.

 

·           May, 1988 – World Health Organization, of 166 nations, adopted a resolution to eradicate polio: At the time, polio was endemic in 125 nations, and was paralyzing or killing 1,000 persons per day.

 

·           By year 2000, two billion children worldwide had received oral polio vaccine, and only 20 remaining countries were annually with new polio cases.

 

·           July, 2002: RI Polio-Plus campaign initiated with goal of polio eradication by Rotary Centennial (2005.) RI raised another $120 million in the next 3 years.

 

·           From 350,000 cases in 1985 to fewer than 1,000, in only 4 countries at this time, a 99.8% drop. Five million people are walking today who would have otherwise been paralyzed, and 500,000 cases continue to be prevented each year.

 

·           Eradication is still not quite achieved. In 2008, the Gates Foundation made a $100 Matching grant contribution to RI, seeking a $100 million match from the world’s 33,000 Rotary clubs. This was in addition to the $50 million Gates Foundation grant in year 2000. In January 2009, the Gates Foundation added another $255 million grant to RI, seeking an additional $100 million from the world’s Rotary Clubs.

 

·           RI is seeking $3,000 from each Rotary Club to match each of the $100 million Gates Foundation grants, a total of $6,000 per club. RI asks clubs to raise the funds with events and activities that make local communities aware of RI efforts with polio. In 2008, South Lake Tahoe Rotary club raised over $3,400 at a single event, with South Tahoe High School senior Brittney Cummings telling of her National Immunization Day (NID) trip to Nigeria in November 2007.

 

·           On May 19, 2010, South Lake Tahoe Rotarian Randy Butler will tell of his NID trip to India in February 2009. The South Lake Tahoe Rotary Club is committed to at least raise the remainder of its $6,000 share in the effort to eradicate polio!