About 500,000 more children will receive the polio vaccine, thanks to Ed and Jean McCabe of Park Ridge.

 

Taking advantage of the recently passed legislation that allows retirement assets to be donated without paying income tax, they gave their entire maximum limit, $100,000, to The Rotary Foundation to be used for polio eradication.  Coupled with the Gates Foundation’s challenge match, this will vaccinate 500,000 children. 

 

Speaking from their Florida winter home, Ed, a member of the Rotary Club of Park Ridge, was passionate that these funds “be used now.”  He vividly recalled the 1935 polio outbreak “which affected everyone, even if they did not contract the virus.”  He spoke about the 2007 District Conference where they had lunch with Bill Gates, Sr., who with their challenge grant “gave new breath to donors.”  A Rotarian since 1971, it was many years before he gave money to The Rotary Foundation, he said. 

 

 “Many Rotarians think once they became a Paul Harris Fellow that they complete their [Rotary Foundation] financial obligation," said Ed McCabe.  "That is not true.  I hope more Rotarians give to our Rotary Foundation, to step up to the Gates Challenge.”