Rotary Club planning World Polio Awareness Day

One step at a time, Rotarians are walking to “End Polio Now,” and members of the Gainesville-Haymarket Rotary Club are leading the way.

As part of a new local-to-global campaign founded by the Gainesville-Haymarket Rotary Club, Rotarians and the public will take part in “Rotary Walk” on Oct. 24, World Polio Awareness Day.

District 7610 Rotarians will walk to the White House to raise money for Polio Plus, Rotary International’s global campaign to eradicate polio. They also are challenging Rotarians across America and around the globe to walk in their communities on the same day for the same cause.

After 20 years of hard work, Rotary and its partners are on the brink of eradicating this inveterate disease, but a strong push is needed to root it out once and for all.

“The walk marks a window of opportunity of historic proportions,” said Gainesville-Haymarket Rotary member and walker Marilyn Karp.

The donations from the Rotary Walk will help Rotary raise $200 million to match $355 million in challenge grants received from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The resulting $555 million will directly support immunization campaigns in developing countries where polio continues to infect and paralyze children. An immunization for a child only costs $1.

Gainesville-Haymarket Rotary member and event organizer Eric Latham said, “We’re walking for the millions of children who, without Rotary, would be crippled by polio and unable to walk.

“We’re asking Rotarians to fulfill their commitment to end polio.”

Some members of the Rotary Club of Gainesville-Haymarket have pledged to walk about 20 miles from Northern Virginia to the White House. The walk will conclude at a meeting of Rotarians at the Ellipse in front of the White House at 5 p.m.

“It will be a wonderful opportunity to raise awareness about Rotary’s global efforts to eradicate polio,” Latham said. “We’re looking for help in getting representation from the embassies of each country with existing polio cases to come and join us on the Ellipse.”

“If you can’t do it yourself, then sponsor your spouse, children or grandchildren,” said Karp. “We even have one member who’s talking about walking on his treadmill!”

Latham said, “We’d like to invite clubs or individual Rotarians or anyone at all to get involved with the Rotary Walk at any level they choose. They can register to walk, sponsor those of us that will be walking and/or meet us at the Ellipse on Oct. 24.”

The registration cost is $10, which will be donated to Rotary’s End Polio Now campaign. Registrants can create teams and use the online fundraising program to send e-mails to friends and family to raise money for End Polio Now.

A visible donation record will be kept on the fundraising page by individual donors and teams.

Register on the Rotary Walk fundraising page at www.firstgiving.com/rotarywalk.

To learn more, visit www.rotarywalk.org or call Eric Latham at 276-494-1656.