Editor:

A recent article [in today's Senty, page 20] reported that Rotary
International has received a $100 million gift from the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation to continue its battle to eradicate polio from
the face of the earth. This small bit of news in Greater Portland has
been a mammoth piece of news in other parts of the world.

Rotary International began its campaign to eradicate polio in 1985 when
it announced the organization’s commitment to the children of the
world. The late Rotary Governor, Sarando P. (“Sam”) Giftos of Cape
Elizabeth, a retired Portland High school teacher and local accountant,
returned from an international meeting with the report to local Rotary
clubs that the Rotarians at the meeting had committed Rotary to buy
vaccine to immunize every child on earth. It seemed, at the time, like
an impossible commitment to fulfill.

Since that time, and with the money from the Gates gift and its match,
Rotary International’s charitable foundation will have contributed,
over the 22 years, more than $830,000,000 to the worldwide polio
eradication effort, a majority of this money coming from individual
Rotary club members.

Rotarians in Maine have contributed generously to this effort. Perhaps
more importantly, many of these Maine community volunteers, joining
with thousands of Rotary volunteers from around the world, also have
traveled, at their own expense, to places like India, Bangladesh,
Pakistan, Nepal, Nigeria, Cameron, Ghana, Togo, Egypt, and every other
corner of the world, to administer polio vaccine in state-sponsored
National Immunization Days. Billions of children have been immunized
through these efforts.

The last few hundred annual polio cases are the most difficult to
extinguish. Little corners in India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan
continue to report a few hundred cases of wild polio virus infections –
“few” in relation to the thousands of annual cases when this campaign
began, but devastating to parents and families who see their children
wither and die. Rotarians remain totally committed to eradication of
the wild polio virus.

“Rotarians” – you perhaps know them as the volunteers who stand out in
the freezing cold selling Christmas trees each year at Millcreek Park
in South Portland to raise money for local charitable efforts. Some of
that money has gone to polio eradication. Why not stop by Millcreek
Park and say hello to these community volunteers?

Dan Mooers, South Portland

Regional Coordinator, Rotary International PolioPlus Partners Program

Past Rotary International Director