The Rotary Club of Laguna Beach is proud to be a sponsor of the Guatemala Literacy Project, one of the largest grassroots, multi-club, multi-district projects in Rotary. More than 600 clubs and 80 districts have been working together since 1997 to improve education for underserved students in Guatemala. In that time, nearly 225,500 students have been served through four sustainable programs that are tested and proven to work. In 2017, then-RI President Ian Riseley called the GLP “the gold standard of Rotary projects” for its sustainability and impact.

Rotarians in Egypt and the United States are helping doctors at a pediatric hospital in Cairo save the lives of hundreds of premature babies each year through the gift of lifesaving neonatal equipment.

The hospital treats 1 million patients per year and suffers from overcrowding and lack of equipment. Most of the hospital’s patients are from poor or underserved families. The mortality rate has reached 25 percent among all patients and 5 percent for gastric patients.

Wanting to reduce the number of infant deaths, the Egyptian Rotarians asked the hospital’s doctors how they could help. The club and its US partner club applied for a Foundation grant and raised funds for the US$23,000 project, which purchased a defibrillator, ventilator, infusion pump, syringe pump, and diagnostic devices.

The world is now more than 99% polio-free.
Polio cases have declined rapidly since 1985, but the fight isn't over. Polio is a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease, and for as little as US$0.60, a child can be protected against the virus for life. If we don't finish the fight right now, more than 10 million children under the age of five could be paralyzed by polio in the next 40 years.

Since Rotary helped launch the polio eradication initiative, polio cases have fallen from 350,000 a year in 125 countries to just a handful in only three countries.

Rotary's Role
1979 Rotary clubs take on a project to buy and help deliver polio vaccine to more than six million children in the Philippines.

1985 Rotary International launches PolioPlus, the first and largest internationally coordinated private-sector support of a public health initiative, with an initial pledge of US$120 million.

1988 Rotarians raise US$247 million for PolioPlus, more than double their fundraising goal of $120 million. The World Health Assembly passes a resolution to eradicate polio, setting up the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. More than 125 countries are polio-endemic.

1991 Last case of wild poliovirus in the Americas.

1994 The Western Hemisphere is declared polio-free.

1995 Rotarians, health workers and volunteers immunize 165 million children in China and India in a single week. Rotary launches the PolioPlus Partners program, enabling Rotarians in polio-free countries to provide financial support to their fellow Rotarians in polio-affected countries for immunization campaigns and other polio eradication activities.

1996 The number of nations declared polio-free increases to 150. The reported incidence of polio is 85 percent less than in 1988.

1997 The last case of wild polio occurs in the Western Pacific Region. She is a 15-month-old girl called Mum Chanty living near Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

2000 A record 550 million children – almost one-tenth of the world's population – receive the oral polio vaccine. The Western Pacific region, spanning from Australia to China, is declared polio-free.

2003 The Rotary Foundation raises US$119 million from its membership in a 12-month campaign. Rotary's total contribution to polio eradication exceeds $500 million. Six countries remain polio-endemic – Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan.

2004 In Africa, synchronized National Immunization Days in 23 countries target 80 million children, the largest coordinated polio immunization effort on the continent.

2006 The number of polio-endemic countries drops to four (Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, Pakistan), the lowest in human history at the time.

2009 Rotary's overall contribution to the eradication effort nears US$800 million. In January the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledges US$355 million and issues Rotary a challenge grant of US$200 million which becomes known as Rotary's $200 Million Challenge. This announcement will result in a combined US$555 million in support of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

2011 Rotary welcomes celebrities and other major public figures into a new public awareness campaign and ambassador program called "This Close" to ending polio. Program ambassadors include Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu, violinist Itzhak Perlman, golfer Jack Nicklaus, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, actor Jackie Chan, Grammy Award-winning singers Angelique Kidjo and Ziggy Marley, and environmentalist Dr. Jane Goodall. Rotary's funding for polio eradication exceeds $1 billion.

2012 India surpasses an entire year without a recorded case of polio, and is taken off the polio endemic list. Only three countries remain polio endemic. Rotary surpasses its $200 Million Challenge fundraising goal more than five months earlier than planned.