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This American Went From Dropout To Helping End Polio Across The World - The Federalist

This American Went From Dropout To Helping End Polio Across The World - The Federalist

This American Went From Dropout To Helping End Polio Across The World - The Federalist
Oct 23, 2020 1 min, 44 secs

No one is more surprised than James Steele that he is president of the Rotary Club in his hometown of Selma, Alabama.

Now in his second year as president, Steele is preparing Selma Rotarians to celebrate World Polio Day on Oct.

24, a signature cause of Rotary International and one Steele values most.

Selma Rotarians are joining a national effort with Dunkin Donuts’s “Purple Pinky” donuts, Steele said.

This World Polio Day, Rotarians have great news to celebrate.

In August, the World Health Organization announced that the wild poliovirus has been eradicated from all 47 countries in Africa, a 24-year “herculean effort by the international community and health care workers” who had to traverse rough remote terrain and hostile tribes. Rotary International was instrumental in the beginning that work, partnering with South African President Nelson Mandela in 1996 to launch Kick Polio Out of Africa Campaign.

Beginning in 1979, Rotary has led a worldwide polio vaccination campaign, when it vaccinated 6 million children in the Philippines.

While celebrating their progress stamping out polio, Steele says Selma Rotarians are still working hard to make sure the effort keeps going.

“We want to see all the children of the world vaccinated against polio,” he said.

The Selma Rotary Club was chartered just 12 years later and has a long history of volunteering in the community, serving lunch to veterans, filling food bags at the Food Bank, giving scholarships to college-bound students, installing park benches for the city, giving books and supplies to schools, sponsoring lunches for first responders, teachers, and medical workers, supporting the 2020 Census, and of course, fundraising for Rotary International’s worldwide campaign to end polio.

“Service above self,” the Rotary Club motto, resonates with Steele, who frequently donates pizzas to community causes and daily takes on the challenge of giving young adults their first job, teaching them the reality of the working world.

Meanwhile, serving at the front lines of the 115-year old organization, Steele stands by the words of its founder Paul Harris: “Whatever Rotary may mean to us, to the world it will be known by the results it achieves.”

Summarized by 365NEWSX ROBOTS

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