Prepping for World Polio Day Tomorrow

I never really knew much about Polio. Until I joined Rotary. For many years, the organization has been raising money and sending volunteers to inoculate kids against the disease.

Tomorrow is World Polio Day so I'd love for you to watch this video I narrated. It was shown to a worldwide audience on World Polio Day 2016. The numbers have been revised since then so I encourage you to tune in tomorrow as health experts and celebrity ambassadors provide an update on where we're at in the fight against this crippling disease.

Ask your kids and grandkids and they probably won't really know much about the disease. Maybe they've heard mentions of the "Polio-like illness" that's been in the news lately. Polio used to be extremely prevalent in the USA in my parents' generation, then over the years got contained to only a few countries that were far away from us.

In that time, it seems many Americans have forgotten about what a horrible threat it used to be in our country. I took this photo of a page from my mother's memory book. She wrote that the saddest event of her teen years was the threat of polio. Kids were told to keep away from crowds. Can you imagine if Jersey Shore pools and movie theatres were closed because of an infectious disease?

Rotary's goal is to wipe the disease off the face of the earth and as their advertising campaign suggests, we are "this close" to eradicating it.

I'm proud to be part of an organization which is working so hard to reach its goal. Tomorrow's polio webcast will be a good way to get updated on the eradication efforts.

I invite you to tune in from your computer, tablet, or smartphone tomorrow at 6:30 pm. You can watch the live event by clicking this link.