A
hush fell over the darkened auditorium. The spotlight illuminated
the speaker and the silence was broken by the quiet passion of
the words - two hundred and forty seven million dollars. The roof
of the auditorium opened and thousands of multicolored balloons and
confetti rained down upon the cheering Rotarians that were present.
Oh how I wish I were there that day in 1988. That wondrous day
when it was announced that Rotary had pledged $247,000,000 to
eliminate polio. We promised the world that day by our 100th
birthday in 2005 we would eliminate Polio. Oh how I wish I were
present at that historic moment!
I wasn’t there! No women were there! Sixty-five percent of our current
memberships were not Rotarians then. They were not part of the
beginning of the greatest public service campaign in the history
of the world. Rotary promised to eliminate polio from the face
of the earth. Most of us were not in Rotary then.
Think
of it. In 1985 there were 350,000 cases of polio worldwide,
which Rotary helped reduce to fewer than 400 in 2001. We are
almost there. The final campaign is now in our hands. We now
have the opportunity to close the door on this dreaded disease –
Polio. Our DGEs (2002-2003) pledged at Anaheim in February that
they would raise the final dollars needed. We have the
opportunity to participate. We promised to raise $80,000,000
this upcoming year for PolioPlus. . Can we do it? Will we see
those balloons and streaming confetti again?
Will you help?
Volume 1, Issue 5 April 2002
ROTARY INTERNATIONAL ZONE 25
REMEMBER THE PROMISE
OUR FOUNDATION
Eddie
Blender, RRFC |
