Industrialists, Professionals, and Doctors to serve food at local restaurant on 20th October

- Rotary Club of Chandigarh organizes fund-raiser to support polio eradication campaign at Hot Millions 2
- The founder of the World’s Greatest Meal to eradicate polio, Rtn. Sussane Rea from Australia will be joining.

By Kulbir Kalsi
CHANDIGARH : Many senior industrialists, businessmen, lawyers and doctors would be donning the waiters’ aprons at Hot Millions-2 on Monday, 20th October to raise funds to eradicate polio from the world.

Though India has en declared polio free early this year, the vigilance to keep our children protected against polio hs to continue till the time the entire world is polio free. Sussane Rea from Australia and the brain behind this worldwide campaign of World’s Greatest Meal, would be joining in and participating in the campaign on Monday at Chandigarh.

Hot Millions-2 which is also owned by a Rotarian, would be sharing 50 percent of the sales proceeds of the evening with the Club.

The campaign against polio initiated by Rotary International in 1985 was joined later by the WHO, UNICEF, Centre for Disease and the national governments, and today the relentless efforts have succeeded in eradicating it from most parts of the world, with only Afghanistan,Pakistan and Nigeria remaining as the three endemic countries.

Since the polio virus could be carried across the borders the fight continues and the Rotarians around the world continue to work to keep children of the world protected.

Since these last mile efforts require huge funds, Rotarians around the world are raising funds through a campaign Worlds’ Greatest Meal, and already for as little as US60 cents, a child can be vaccinated against polio for life. And thanks to a 2-to-1 match from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, every dollar that Rotary commits to polio eradication will become three dollars.

As of October 14th 2014, there have been 675 events registered in 51 countries. With more than 23,700 participants worldwide. So far, USD $341,084.45 has been raised, a total of USD $1,023,253.35 with matching funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which would help buy more than 1,600,000 polio vaccinations.

World’s Greatest Meal to Help End Polio” (WGM) began as a joint club project, initiated by Australian Rotarian Susanne Rea and British Rotarian Mukesh Malhotra with the intention of raising funds for End Polio Now by inviting Rotarians, via social media, to host a meal and accept donations on February 23, 2014. Six months later, WGM is an ongoing successful fundraising method used by hundreds of clubs in dozens of Districts.