The Cambria Rotary Club is getting ready for its big fundraiser of the year and invites everyone to “walk or run … for those who can’t.”
The club’s second annual “5k Walk or Run the Cambria Coast to Help Eradicate Polio,” is set for 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 19 at Shamel Park in Cambria.
Proceeds from the event will go towards Rotary International’s “PolioPlus Program,” and the fight to end polio throughout the world.
The route will start at the oceanfront, Shamel Park, and head south along the coast onto the Fiscalini Preserve and back again, 3 miles total (5 kilometers).
The route will be just about the most scenic imaginable, as the runners and walkers will traverse some of the most naturally beautiful coastal lands in SLO County.
When PolioPlus began in 1979, there were over 1,000 new cases of polio reported worldwide every day and over 350,000 cases a year in 134 countries, according to a news release.
“Last year there were only 12 cases total in our world, and only two countries remain polio endemic — Pakistan and Afghanistan. To date over 3 billion children have been immunized; 20 million children do not have paralysis because of these efforts; and 1.5 million children’s deaths from this dreaded disease have been averted.”
These efforts got a big boost, on a dare. “In 1985, at the Rotary International Convention, Dr. Albert Sabin, the developer of the oral polio vaccine, challenged Rotary to eliminate polio from the face of the Earth. Rotary accepted that challenge, and in 1985 Rotary’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative was announced.”
Entry to the walk-run is $25 a person (entry fee or runner sponsorship) and you can register online at: CambriaRotaryFundraiser.org or get a form in person at the Cambria Chamber of Commerce Office, 767 Main St., in the West Village.
You can register and donate online or send in a donation to: Rotary Club of Cambria Foundation, P.O. Box 1648 Cambria, CA 93428. Write “Polio” on the memo line.
