Dr. Lee Harman Recognized
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R.I. President's Representative John Prendergast & Lee
During the Thursday morning plenary session during the 2018 District Conference Cruise, Lee Harman, a member and past president of our club, was award the Regional Service Award for a Polio Free World. The award was presented to him by John Prendergast, the R.I. President's Representative from Invercargill, New Zealand.
District Governor Lindagene Coyle nominated Lee for this award and she read the details of she provided this summary of Lee's efforts:
Rotary chose polio as its champion cause in 1985. Since then millions of Rotarians have given their support to this cause which is critical to the health of children all over the world. But some Rotarians have truly taken to heart the goal of a polio-free world and these Rotarians deserve recognition for the outstanding amount of time and effort they have dedicated to Rotary’s PolioPlus program. For such efforts, Rotary established in 1996 the Service Award for a Polio-Free World. These awards are given out by region as defined by the World Health Organization. Those regions are the Americas, Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. Today I’m proud to honor such a Rotarian with the Regional Service Award for a Polio-Free World for the Americas region.
Lee Harman has been actively involved in Polio Plus activities since November 2008 when he was asked to be the Polio Plus Chair for District 5050.Ðe attended an NID in Uttar Pradesh, India in January 2009 to obtain background information for his role. He developed a Polio Plus talk which he delivered to 47 clubs within District 5050 and 6 outside of the District, including a Kiwanis club. He organized a District challenge for the Golfun event for Polio Plus in 2010 and had all but one club contribute to Polio Plus that year. In November 2011, R. Lee Harman developed the first Music in the Mancave event which raised $27,000 and the second Music in the Mancave which raised a further $25,000 in March 2013. In 2012, R. Lee organized the Polio Plus: A Musical Celebration at McIntyre Hall in Mount Vernon. This event raised over $89,000 for Polio Plus. In June 2011, R. Lee was appointed by RI as an Endowment/Major Gift Officer. He held this position for two years. When he retired from his work life in 2012, he asked for donations to PolioPlus.
R. Lee is currently working on the Miss Vicky project which is a 10,000-mile drive from Peking to Paris over 36 days that will take place in June-July 2019. He travels to clubs and public events to display Miss Vicky and promote making donations to PolioPlus. Miss Vicky is a 1931 Model A Ford Victoria. R. Lee Harman is promoting donations for Polio Plus with a website, Facebook, presentations, and public appearances. "The donations to PolioPlus have started coming in! Miss Vicky is preparing to drive over 10,000 miles from Peking (Beijing) to Paris to raise $1,000,000 to help eradicate polio from the Earth!" Lee Harman has worked tirelessly to raise the profile of PolioPlus in a unique manner. 100% of funds raised go to PolioPlus.