Highlands NC Rotary - RotaryFoundation News

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.

The Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation who share its vision of a better world.

The Rotary Foundation, part of Rotary International, funds many of the projects that on a world scale receive high recognition. PolioPlus, Rotary’s worldwide polio eradication program is the most famous of these projects funded by contributions from Rotarians in local Rotary Clubs.

In January 2009 in what we hope will be the last initiative for PolioPlus, Rotary International pledged $100 million to meet the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s $255 million. In 2007 the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Rotary each donated $100 million to the PolioPlus project. The current $100 million will be donated by Rotary Clubs over the next three years. Rotary’s partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative are the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF

The last step in Polio eradication has been an elusive one due to immunization difficulties in countries at war or in civil discord – notably parts of Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan.

Rotary encourages Rotarians to donate to the Rotary Foundation’s Annual Fund that most refer to as the Paul Harris Foundation, named after Rotary’s founder – Paul Harris. Money donated to the Annual Fund comes back to the originating Rotary districts in an interesting manner. Half of the money is returned to the District after three years and the other half is used for projects directly financed by Rotary International. Interest and earnings on the money during its three years at RI is used for RI costs and operations.

RI Foundation funds returned to the District will become grants to pay for Student Exchange Programs, Ambassadorial Scholarships, Group Study Exchange, Rotary Grants for University Teachers and Rotary Centers for International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution among others, Chalker explained.

Rotary also has a program named the 3-H Program or Health, Hunger and Humanity Program that involves active participation by Rotarians to receive matching grants. Dr. John Baumrucker’s Bolivian Mission has, at times, been a recipient of these matching funds.

Highlands has seen students in the Highlands School as a result of the Student Exchange Program and students from Highlands have spent a year aboard as part of the Student Exchange Program.

Group Study Exchange is a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for non-Rotarian businesspeople and professionals between the ages of 25 and 40. The program provides travel grants for teams to exchange visits in areas of different countries. For four to six weeks, team members experience the host country's culture and institutions, and observe how their vocations are practiced abroad. Participants in GSE have visited Highlands as part of their time in the US.

The RI Foundation has many programs that are highly profiled but also programs that have been realized here in Highlands and through Highlands to a Mission in Bolivia.