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Community Corner

Wakefield Rotary Passes Milestone in Polio Erradication

For the past 3 years, the Wakefield Rotary Club has participated in the Polar Plunge for Polio, an area-wide event to raise money and awareness for polio eradication world-wide. Hosted in Gloucester, Rotarians, friends and family jump into the icy waters in February. Club Polio Chair Amy Luckiewicz explained, “All Rotary clubs world-wide are committed to eradicating this disease. We wanted to do something special this year.” The club began by setting a goal to double their 2012-13 amount. “We were optimistic. We aimed for $10,000 this year,” Luckiewicz said. “I can’t believe what actually happened.” The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also made a pledge. They promised The Rotary Foundation a 2:1 match for every dollar clubs world-wide raised for the world polio movement. The club had from July, 2013 to June, 2014 to hit their goal, and they certainly did that.

 

By doubling their team size, instituting a social media campaign, highlighting world partners such as the World Health Organization, and talking up the Gates match, the club recently tallied their total to just over $20,000. Club Treasurer Bruce Donovan commented, “We’ve never raised so much for polio. We sent the money right into the Rotary Foundation so we could access the Gates match quickly!” In fact, with the Gates match, and at just $0.60 a vaccine, the Wakefield Rotary Club raised enough money for 100,000 wild polio virus vaccines. Rotarian and first-time participant Lisa Roderick noted, “A lot of people wonder why we are working on polio. If you’ve ever seen a polio victim suffer, you’d know why. And we need to me mindful, that polio is just a plane ride away. One unvaccinated person puts many people at risk.”

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To continue the effort, the Gates pledge will continue into this Rotary year. “This year, we’re going to be much more aggressive,” said Club President Bob Mailhoit. “We’re aiming for $25,000 this year. We know that people have lots of options when it comes to donating money. We hope that local donors and partners will consider that the polio eradication dream is tangible. It just takes $0.60 to change someone’s life.”

 

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To learn more about Rotary and its partners in the global eradication movement, visit www.endpolio.org.

 

About Rotary International & Wakefield Rotary Club

Rotary is an organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. There are 1.2 million Rotarians in 160 countries worldwide.  The first Rotary Club was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1905 by an attorney named Paul Harris and several of his colleagues. The name “Rotary” was derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among each of the members’ offices. The Rotary motto is “Service above self”. The Wakefield Rotary Club meets each Tuesday at 12:15pm at the Lord Wakefield Hotel, Lakeside Room. For more information, visit www.wakefieldrotaryclub.org.


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