Bridging the Gap

PORTSMOUTH — Ken Bailey, treasurer and past president of the Exeter Rotary Club, looked out over the Piscataqua River from the center of the Memorial Bridge on a crisp fall morning.

 “This is just beautiful,” Bailey said. “I’ve driven over the bridge, but never walked it.”

Bailey was one of about 150 Rotarians and their friends who joined the “Bridge the Gap to End Polio” event Saturday morning to raise awareness of the efforts of Rotary International to eradicate polio.

Carrying American, state and country flags, and Rotary Chapter banners, the participants spread out spanning the length of the bridge in recognition of World Polio Day, which was Friday, Oct. 24.

The event was sponsored by Rotary District 7780 and the Seacoast Rotary Club of Portsmouth.

“We are hoping to raise $10,000 to $15,000 today,” said Rotarian Susan Von Hemert, who came up with the idea. “This year at our Rotary International meeting, we elected a new president who did a similar event in Sydney, Australia. I thought, we have a bridge, and the event grew from there.”

 Participants were asked to pay a $5 registration fee and to donate $25. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will match each dollar raised with $2.

 “So, a $25 donation, becomes $75 and can immunize 125 children in countries where polio is still present,” Von Hemert said.

 District 7780 covers 40 Rotary Clubs in southern Maine and the New Hampshire Seacoast.

 Von Hemert said more than half the clubs were represented Saturday morning and that there were also high school students from Interact Clubs as well as college students from Rotaract Clubs.

 “The eradication of polio is Rotary’s number one priority as an organization,” Rotary District 7780 Gov. Lawrence Furbish told the crowd before heading to the bridge.

 “It began in 1979 when a group of Rotarians purchased some polio vaccines for the Philippine Islands.”

 Furbish noted at that time, there were more than 125 countries on five continents where polio still existed, paralyzing 350,000 children a year. The United States was declared polio-free in 1979.

 In 1985, on the 40th anniversary of the United Nations, Rotary International announced a pledge of $120 million dollars for its Polio Plus program to end polio. Joining with the World Health Organization in Geneva, UNICED and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Rotary International began a program that resulted in the Americas being certified as polio-free in 1994.

“We are now into what is being called the ‘End Game,’ where we will succeed in stamping out polio,” Furbish said.

Last year, India was declared polio-free. The crippling childhood disease remains endemic in three countries – Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.

Bailey said he remembers being immunized as a child with the liquid vaccination.

“One of our past district governors had polio as a child,” he said. “She’s been overseas many times helping to distribute the vaccine.

 Since 1985, Rotary has contributed nearly $1.2 billion and countless volunteer hours providing polio vaccines to more than 2 billion children in 122 countries. A highly infectious disease, polio causes paralysis and can be fatal. There is no cure, so prevention is considered the best way to eradicate the disease. To learn more about the effort to eradicate polio, visit www.endpolio.org.