The Rotary Club of Granby participated in Rotary International’s World Polio Day Oct. 23 by raising over $1,000 toward the effort to finally erase the polio virus from the world. That $1,000 will be translated into $3,000, thanks to the Gates Foundation’s matching funds.
Granby’s End Polio event was held at Maverick’s Grille with an Oktoberfest theme and a generous silent auction stocked with items from local businesses and Rotarians.
Rotary declared polio a disease worth eradicating 40 years ago by being a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Since then, the Initiative can claim a 99.9 percent reduction in cases worldwide. Today polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan.
It costs only $3 to fully protect a child against polio, but $100 million to conduct polio surveillance worldwide, so the fight is not over. If eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year. Rotary International conducts World Polio Days annually to continue raising funds and awareness.
— Granby Rotary Club