On June 10th 22 Rotarians and friends jumped from a small plane out of the Charlevoix airport to raise money to eradicate polio. We raised just over $39,000 and with a bit of luck, we will get some late donations to take us over the $40,000 hurdle. That, with the Gates Foundation match, will mean $120,000 for polio eradication. That means a lot of kids who will never get polio because of the generosity of many donors supporting the efforts of the 22 jumpers.
Raising money for Polio Eradication is a big deal these days. Getting to zero cases in the name of the game these days: get to zero cases of polio and then stay there for 3 years. That is the requirement to have the world certified polio-free. The budget to do this is $1.5 Billion. Rotary had pledged $50M a year for the next three years and The Gates Foundation has pledged to match the Rotary donations up to $50M a year for the next three years. That amounts to 33% of the total budget and national governments and public health organizations from around the world have pledged the rest.
Notice the active word in the last paragraph is "Pledged". That is why we are raising money and that is why this jump is important. With only 10 cases in the world a year to date as of last week. We could get that last case at any time. Maybe it was the last one on May 24th. It could come at any time, but the work required to go for three years polio-free is no less than it is to get to zero.
Thanks to everyone who supported our work. We hope everyone will take this job seriously and donate generously to Polio Plus whenever the opportunity arises.
Interested in the story about our jump? Click Here to view the TV 9&10 feature story they did and ran on Monday.
Rotarian Lisa Pointe