Couple’s $1.1 million gift boosts push to eradicate polio
Rotary member Terry Caster and his wife, Barbara, announced a $1.1 million gift to Rotary to help eradicate polio. What’s more, their gift will be matched two-for-one by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, resulting in $3.3 million in new funding for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.
The Casters' gift is one of the largest-ever individual contributions to Rotary for polio eradication. In addition to supporting our No. 1 goal of a polio-free world, the couple gave $750,000 to the Rotary Peace Centers to fund a peace fellow’s studies every other year. Both gifts were made to The Rotary Foundation in December.
"Barbara and I are blessed to be fruitful in our family business, A-1 Self Storage," said Terry, the company's founder and a member of the Rotary Club of La Mesa in California. "We've always felt it is important to give back and help others, so we are involved in numerous charities.
"But as a Rotarian, I can think of no cause more worthy than Rotary's work to end polio and promote peace," said Terry, who received Rotary's Service Above Self Award in 1993 for his humanitarian work.
Since the 1960s, the Casters have actively supported humanitarian efforts in San Diego and across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. They founded Serving Hands International in 1982 to help the poor in Baja California. After meeting Mother Teresa, the couple were inspired to expand SHI’s work in Mexico.
Through our advocacy, fundraising, and public awareness efforts, Rotary has helped reduce polio cases by 99 percent worldwide. The End Polio Now, Make History Today fundraising campaign makes contributions work three times as hard with matching funds from the Gates Foundation.
Throughout India and around the world, Rotary clubs are celebrating a major milestone: India has gone three years without a new case of polio. The last reported case was a two-year-old girl in West Bengal on 13 January 2011.
To mark this historic triumph -- reached after a decades-long battle against polio -- Rotary clubs illuminated landmarks and iconic structures throughout the country with four simple but powerful words, "India is polio free."
The three-year achievement sets the stage for polio-free certification of the entire Southeast Asia region by the World Health Organization. The Indian government also plans to convene a polio summit in February to commemorate this victory in the global effort to eradicate polio.
The challenge now is to replicate India's success in neighboring Pakistan, one of three remaining polio-endemic countries, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria.