The Wisconsin Rapids Rotary Club, with support from the Rotarian Charles and Gayle Gibbons Family Charity Funds, will match up to $500 per club in donations to Rotary’s PolioPlus Fund from February 1 to April 18, 2026.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will then match those funds 2-to-1, turning each $500 club donation into $3,000 for polio vaccines, while also doubling any additional contributions.
The Wisconsin Rapids Rotary Club, in partnership with the Rotarian Charles Gibbons and Gayle Gibbons Family Charity Funds, has announced that it will match up to $500 in donations from every club that is made to Rotary’s Polio Plus Fund between February 1 and April 18, 2026. That total will then be matched twice by the Gates Foundation. As a result, every club’s $500 donation during that period will enable the Rotary Foundation to provide $3,000 worth of polio vaccine to children throughout the world. In addition, the Gates Foundation will continue to match twice every contribution in excess of $500.
In 1985 Rotarians made a promise to the children of the world: We promised them that we would eradicate polio from the face of the earth. On the day that we made that promise there were 125 countries on 5 continents that were polio endemic. During the year of 1985 more than 350,000 children were paralyzed by or died as a result of the poliovirus. Rotarians have raised more than $2.1 billion for this noble cause. Only two countries remain polio endemic—Afghanistan and Pakistan. During the last 4 months of 2025 there were no confirmed cases of wild poliovirus in Afghanistan and only 1 confirmed case of polio in Pakistan. Help us reach that day when no child will ever again be paralyzed by polio.
For more information contact District 6250 Polio Plus Co-Chair Randy Sproule at randysproule@gmail.com