Purple Pinkie Rotary polio fundraiser turns every $25 into $187

Demopolis Rotary Club members are joining other Rotarians across Rotary District 6880 in the fight to eradicate polio from the globe through Purple Pinkie donuts.

For the second year clubs in District 6880 are urging communities to help end the paralyzing disease by participating in the “Purple Pinkie Day” fund raising effort and recognizing World Polio Day, Oct. 24. The Purple Pinkie idea come from the purple marking on children’s pinky fingers when they receive the immunization in developing countries.

Dunkin Donuts (Bluemont Group, LLC) donates donuts to Rotary at no cost. Club members presell the boxes of 10 donuts at $25 each. The donuts look like the pinkie finger and has a purple tip which symbolizes the ink on the end of a pinkie finger on a child who has been immunized. Fully 100 percent of proceeds goes to Polio Plus Eradication.

Through generous multipliers the $25 is matched by participating Rotary Districts, matched again and then doubled by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Thus, the initial $25 will result in a $187.50 contribution to the World Polio Fund to “End Polio Now!”

Anyone in Marengo County who would like to support the project may contact Hunter Compton at lhc@manleytraeger.com. Deadline for ordering the purple-tipped donuts is Tuesday, Oct. 12.

The boxes of donuts will be delivered to the Demopolis Rotary Club Monday, Oct. 18, which will then distribute them to each purchaser/donor.

Many of those contributing $25 choose to donate their donuts which are given to local first responders and schools.

Rotary International began its efforts to rid the world of the crippling disease when Rotary and its partners launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988. At that time there were 350,000 cases of polio in 125 countries every year. Today, polio cases have been reduced by 99.9 percent, and just two countries continue to report cases of wild poliovirus: Afghanistan and Pakistan.