Rotary’s Polio Eradication is on Thousand Oaks Club’s Radar
A special section on the website http://polioeradication.org shows how Polio Eradication learnings can impact how we deal with COVID-19. This reminds us all how important it was for Rotary to take on the challenge of Polio Eradication throughout the world. Our District is also making progress in the fight against polio. But the job is not yet finished.
The Rotary Club of Thousand Oaks has made a special effort this year to support eradication progress. There is still an active member in that club, Jere Robings, who was at the 1988 Philadelphia Convention that launched the project. Also, several TO club members have gone to India to get involved in NID projects.
And now this year, because of their special fundraising on World Polio Day, the Thousand Oaks club has already more than doubled their Polio Plus contribution from last year.
Money isn’t their only consideration in their PolioPlus support. At the annual Street Fair that the TO club has, they have been joined by Moorpark Rotary Club’s Jim Lewis, who, with TO’s Matt Lallo, builds a display of the iron lung. That helps them educate the community about PolioPlus, and even about polio itself, for so many have no idea what polio is today. When you consider that the Street Fair draws almost 20,000 people, the club feels they can build at least a bit of support for PolioPlus, both in increasing the understanding of the importance of polio eradication and in encouraging public contributions to the project.