Briarcliff Rotary Promotes "End Polio Now" Campaign at Harvest Festival

The Rotary Club of Briarcliff Manor brought its campaign to "End Polio Now" to the Briarcliff Manor Harvest Festival held on Saturday, October 13, 2012.  The Festival is an annual event organized by the Briarcliff Manor Chamber of Commerce to promote local businesses.  The Briarcliff Rotary, a regular participant for the past few years, had a centrally located table manned by several enthusiastic Rotarians.

Eye-popping posters highlighted the humanitarian group’s pledge to eradicate polio, the crippling childhood disease. The 24-year old campaign took on added significance due to the progress Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative have made in India. In January, India -- until recently an epicenter of the crippling childhood disease -- reached a historic milestone by marking a full year without recording a single new polio case.  Overall, the annual number of polio cases has plummeted by more than 99 percent since the initiative was launched in 1988, when polio infected about 350,000 children a year. More than two billion children have been immunized in 122 countries, preventing an estimated five million cases of paralysis and 250,000 deaths. 

Briarcliff Rotary is proud to be a participant in this monumental endeavor.  In addition to such international "peace through service" projects, the Club also organizes local community service projects periodically.