Nov 11, 2008

RI president's message: Celebrate Rotary Foundation Month

November 2008

RI President DONG KURN LEE

Dear fellow Rotarians,

The mission of The Rotary Foundation is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty.

It sounds so simple, yet it means so much.

It means so much to every one of the people touched by Foundation-supported programs every year – the children too poor to go to school, the families who have lost everything in a disaster, the communities that lack sanitation, clean water, and medical care.

It means so much to the two billion children now living lives free from polio. Because of the work that the Foundation has helped support, five million cases of paralysis and more than 250,000 deaths from polio have been prevented.

Today, we are in what we hope will be the last stages of the fight against polio. All of you have helped through your support of our Foundation. Through the Foundation, we are able to be part of the day-to-day work of polio eradication by helping supply the transportation, the fliers, the advertisements, and even the lollipops to ensure we reach all children with the essential oral polio vaccine and make each round of immunization a success.

Those of you who have participated in a National Immunization Day know exactly what I’m talking about when I say there’s nothing like it – nothing like knowing you’re being a part of saving lives and making history. And if you can’t be there yourself, then being part of the work through our Foundation is the next best thing.

Why do we have a Foundation? We have a Foundation because our Foundation lifts Rotary up. It lets every club and every district do the most it possibly can. It allows every one of us to be part of all of Rotary’s work, and it brings that work to greater and greater heights.

As we celebrate Rotary Foundation Month, we should all remember that The Rotary Foundation is our Foundation. It’s here for us and because of us; it allows us to do more, to be more, and to bring more hope to the world. The responsibility for keeping our Foundation strong lies with each of us.

Dong Kurn (D.K.) Lee
President, Rotary International

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