An Octoberfest for Polio is being held by the Silver City Rotary Club on October 30 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the Adobe Springs patio on Bullard Street.

The event, which has a $10 admission fee, will provide free German appetizers, a silent auction, and the latest information about the world wide effort sponsored by Rotary International to eradicate polio.  Beer and wine will be available at a cash bar. Peter Falley, chairman of the local Rotary Club’s Foundation, will give a short presentation on how close the world is to eradicating polio and fliers about the dangers of polio will be distributed.

The silent auction will feature a number of items including a flying pig sculpture, a Steinbach figurine, White House Christmas decorations, jewelry, an origami book with paper and instructions for producing 61 origami designs, and a Silver City Museum membership and gift basket.  All proceeds from the auction will be sent to Rotary International to stop polio before it has the chance to cripple and kill more children.

Polio is a paralyzing and potentially fatal disease that still threatens people in some parts of the world.  The poliovirus invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in hours. It can strike people of any age, but mainly affects children under five.

Rotary’s polio eradication effort began in 1979 with an effort to wipe out polio in the Philippines and is now a major world-wide effort involving multiple partners including the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  This year, once again, donations made to The Rotary Foundation for the effort to End Polio Now will be matched 2 to 1 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“There were over 350,000 cases of wild polio virus a year when Rotary started its efforts to eradicate polio and, to date in 2019, less than 100 cases have been reported,” says Sunny Kellerman, a Silver City Rotarian who is governor-elect for Rotary District 5520.  “There are 18 million children who would have been disabled or died were it not for Rotary’s efforts. Our grandchildren and children are at risk if we don’t get this job done,” Kellerman adds.