Pittsfield Rotary Club 1-14-09

Student Guests from Griggsville Perry:

Cheyenne Syrcle, daughter of Melody Brite and Greg Syrcle.  She is active in Basketball, Cheerleading, Educational Talent Search, SADD, Drama Club, Operation Teen Safety, Assistant Coach Softball and youth basketball.  Plans To attend JWCC and then Blessing School of Radiology..

Kelsey Sharrow, parents Jennifer Sharrow and Steve Leihr.  Works at Perry’s new Restaurant, in Volleyball, SADD, Drama Club, G-Unit,  Quizbowl, Teen Search, YMCA, is a Sunday School teacher, plans on going to WIU majoring in either medical, communications, or teaching.

Make-ups:  Walter and Roberta turned them in…..(we need more..use the internet).

Visitor:  Dr. Jason Bollenbaugh with Mark Meleski

Program:  Walter Lamb introduce two of our Louisiana neighbors, Kate and and Howard Schwandron DDS.  They have been very active in Polio Plus.

Kate did most of the talking, and reported that theyhave been on several trips to Africa to assist in immunizing the children there.  They hav3e found that the children mostly needing immunization are under 5 years old.  They noted that a child under five years cannot put his/her arm over the head and touch the opposite ear, and use it to separate the children to be vaccinated.

They worked mostly in Nigeria, and since 2004, 43 million children have3 been immunized

They have been working where temperature is 105 degrees F.  They marveled at how people live in these conditions….no air conditioning and no running water….Many of the children have never seen a white person.

One out of 4 Nigerian children die of starvation.  Over 1.25 million children will die ther without immunization.

The Muslim leaders have finally  been convinced that polio immunization needs to be done.

Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan still are ‘hotbeds of lingering ‘wild’ polio virus.

Taliban leaders actually stopped their portion of the war so that immunization could be carried out.

They had one of the best slide shows of Polio Plus activities I’ve ever seen, and should be congratulated on giving of their time to assist in making Polio Plus a reality.

( The January issue of the Rotarian has an excellent article that has a fine cartoon type story…I gave mine to my grandchildren so they would learn more readily about Polio Plus….Share yours with someone…)