Young elementary school students supported the recent Purple Pinkie initiative to be part of the solution to End Polio Now! Courtesy photo

BY ALISON PANNELL
Rotary Club of Los Alamos

The Rotary Club of Los Alamos would like to sincerely thank the elementary students, school staff, Rotary Interact students, and the community who participated in our Purple Pinkie Day on Oct 28. With the great support we received from those involved, we raised awareness of this crippling disease and raised close to $1,000 to help pay for immunization services worldwide.

For a one-dollar donation, our students dipped their little fingers into harmless, temporary purple dye, just as children in foreign countries do upon receiving the oral vaccine.  This designates to healthcare workers that the child has been immunized against polio. This is our way of helping eradicate polio and join the continuing efforts of Rotary International, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and UNICEF, as well as many nations to end this crippling disease. 

Polio has no cure but a safe and effective vaccine exists – one which Rotary and its partners use to immunize over 2.5 billion children worldwide every year. A mere 75-cents vaccinates one child against polio, and for every $1 raised, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation matches with another $2, donating as much as $35 million annually.

Rotary launched PolioPlus in 1985 and was a founding member of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988.  Polio cases have decreased by over 99% since then when more than 350,000 people were paralyzed with polio every year. Only two countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, remain endemic with polio.  This reduction is the result of our global effort to eradicate the disease. Today 20 million children who might have been paralyzed by polio can walk, run and play.

These are reasons enough to support our Club efforts and The Rotary Foundation in efforts to eradicate polio.  Donations are gratefully accepted by the Rotary Club of Los Alamos, PO Box 853, Los Alamos, NM 87544. 

Thank you for your support of Rotary to End Polio Now!