The Rotary Club of Jenkintown has been dedicated to "Service Above Self" since 1924

Our motto has been "They Profit Most Who Serve Best"  for 84 years

November is Rotary International Foundation Month
 Click  to view an internet slide show on Polio Vaccination, a short video about Polio eradication, or to make a donation

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Pancake & Eggs Breakfast (2003)

Complete Pancake & Eggs Breakfast Benefit for the Rotary Foundation's Battle Against Polio (held April 26, 2003)

In 1985, Rotary launched the PolioPlus program to protect children worldwide from the cruel and fatal consequences of polio. After seeing evidence of success by Rotary volunteers, in 1988 the World Health Assembly challenged the world to eradicate polio. 

Since that time, Rotary's efforts and those of partner agencies, including the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and governments around the world, have achieved a 99 percent reduction in the number of polio cases worldwide.

Rotarians stand at the brink of a great victory and look forward to celebrating the global eradication of polio in 2005, the organization's centennial year.

The Rotary Club of Jenkintown hosted a Complete Pancake & Egg Breakfast on Saturday, April 26, 2003.  All of the money raised was used in the fight against polio. The menu included: pancakes, scrambled eggs, breakfast sausages, toast, and a variety of beverages.  Service was buffet style, but all food was be prepared on site  by a professional chef, and our club members working under the chef's supervision.  This endeavor raised over $7,200 to fight polio around the globe.  Our club members enjoyed working together and sharing this event with our families, friends, and community supporters.

Our sponsors included both prestigious local firms and individuals, united in their determination to eradicate polio. Today, polio still brings disability, deformity, or death to children overseas.  But this disease is contagious and can easily be carried to your home town by travelers.  Polio threatens children anywhere, until it is eliminated everywhere. 

All proceeds (100%) from this event were donated to the Rotary Foundation's Polio Plus Campaign to eradicate polio throughout the world.  This is done by giving two drops of a safe vaccine by mouth to children living in countries still infested with the wild polio virus.

Among the more fortunate polio victims in India, these children have crutches and braces on their legs enabling them to walk.  Many polio victims are impoverished and spend their lives dragging themselves through the dirt by their hands, forced to beg for what they need.  They are known locally as "crawlers".  Rotary is also  trying to help those already afflicted with polio.	Poliomyelitis is a crippling disease  caused by poliovirus infection. The disease can strike non-immune persons of any age, but affects mainly children under the age of three. Initial symptoms include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, constipation, and stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs.  Muscle pain, spasms and fever are associated with the rapid onset of flaccid (floppy) paralysis or muscle weakness (paresis).    Polio paralysis is almost always permanent and devastatingly changes the life of those afflicted.  Paralysis occurs in one case per 200 to 1000 infections.   Polio is preventable by vaccination.
Until Polio is eradicated everywhere on the planet, it can re-emerge and threaten the people you care about. The polio virus is only a plane flight away from your family. The Rotary Foundation has been the driving force behind eradicating polio, and plans to finish the task by 2005.  But the Foundation needs your help to win the war against polio.	Pictured above a child in Somalia is given the painless, two-drop polio vaccine by a Rotary volunteer.