On October 22, 2018, President Lisa Brown (left) and Paula Fleming conjured a blast from the past that happened as they re-enacted a high school lip sync song that won first place in their teenage years.
Dressed in costume, they performed to the song "Purple People Eater" in support of Rotary's End Polio Now and Purple Pinky Project, where students have their pinky finger stained purple as identification of who has received the polio vaccine...
Polio
Poliomyelitis, or polio, is a paralyzing and potentially fatal disease that still threatens children in some parts of the world. Poliovirus invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in hours. It can strike people of any age but mainly affects children under five. Polio can be prevented by vaccines, but it is not curable. Unlike most diseases, polio can be eradicated.
PolioPlus
For more than 30 years, Rotary and our partners have driven the effort to eradicate polio worldwide. Our PolioPlus program was the first initiative to tackle global polio eradication by vaccinating children on a massive scale. As a core partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, Rotary focuses on advocacy, fundraising, volunteer recruitment, and awareness-building.
Rotary members have contributed $1.9 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect more than 2.5 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease. Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than $8 billion to the effort.
Paula (shown at left) and Lisa attended a Rotary Foundation Celebration Dinner on Thursday, October 11, 2018, in Woodstock. The speaker was Ann Lee Hussey, and her topic was “Ending Polio – Countdown to History.”Ann Lee Hussey is one of Rotary’s top front line fighters in the battle against polio. A polio survivor herself, she has participated in almost 30 national Immunization Days.
Paula showed pictures of some of her work and encouraged people to donate to the cause, and in particular, she hopes that our Club will be able to raise enough money to purchase a bike for a polio survivor. The cost is $250. A collection was taken by the Rotarians below, and more than half of that amount came in!