Remarks by Neil Dunsmore, a club member, at Polio Flag Raising Ceremony:
"The Fergus Elora Rotary Club has been part of a worldwide initiative to eradicate polio.
For more than 30 years Rotary and our partners have driven the effort to eradicate polio worldwide, this was the first initiative to tackle global eradication by vaccinating children on a massive scale. Rotary community service clubs focus on fund raising volunteer recruitment and awareness.
The Fergus Elora Rotary Club has been organising fund raising activities in the Fergus Elora area for the entire month of October such as:
1. Pizza for Polio with our partner Vito's pizzeria any Laura from October 2nd to October 9th any pizza purchased from Vito’s a donation was made by the owner nick to our polio plus campaign.
2. Pints for Polio with our partners the brewhouse in Fergus on October 5th a donation was made by the brewhouse to our polio plus campaign for every pint of beer sold. Thank you to Dennis Cradock and the Brewhouse.
3. Pies for Polio with our partners Fergies Fine Foods in Fergus, who on October 24th will donate the proceeds from every pie sold to polio. Thank you to Miriam Foell for her generous donation and just an interesting side note here Miriam's father was part of
the team that developed the polio vaccine for Rotary International.
I would like to thank our past president Rob Galloway for all his hard work this year on our polio campaign as well as Leanne Iravani for starting the pies for polio and pints for polio several years ago their hard work has made our club a Rotary Leader in the Polio Plus campaign."
For the last 30 years Rotarians around the world have come together with their communities on a single mission to eradicate polio now! We have worked hard, and our efforts are bearing fruit. We are down to 37 cases worldwide, but the fight is not over we have to continue to push. We must continue to reach those isolated areas in the third world countries to make sure this disease does not make a resurgence! We have here today a polio survivor Pat Woode,
Welcome pat and thank you for your support.
We are asking our community to come together and reminding them with this flag to keep working hard so that no child, no family in the world feels the pain of polio like Pat and her family did,. What this flag is here to do is to remind you and to thank you for
the efforts of this community in eradicating polio once and for all!