Rotary projects around the globe – October 2026
Learn how Rotary clubs are taking action in Bolivia, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, Italy, and Australia.
by Brad Webber
6 Oct 2026Rotary members come together each World Polio Day on 24 October to recognize progress in the fight to end the disease. Here are some of the ways members are taking action to make history and eradicate polio. Register your club’s participation for a chance to see it featured in Rotary magazine next year.
Bolivia
The Rotaract Club of La Paz, in collaboration with local Interactors, hosted Paws Against Polio, a lively community fair and dog show dedicated to raising funds and awareness for polio eradication. Visitors enjoyed educational carnival-style games about polio eradication, a bake sale, a dog adoption booth in partnership with a local animal shelter, and raffle drawings that awarded Rotaract merchandise and souvenirs. “The highlight was the dog parade,” says Cristhofer Mamani Quispe, the club’s president, “where registered furry participants competed for prizes — including veterinary consultations and dog-friendly cakes — for the cutest outfits and best tricks.” Throughout the day, volunteers shared information about Rotary’s global efforts to eradicate polio and encouraged attendees to support the campaign.
Canada
In an attention-grabbing effort to introduce new members to Rotary’s polio push, the Rotary Club of Southampton, Ontario, scheduled a dinner packed with purple. A club member concocted a menu that included meatballs in grape jelly sauce, red cabbage, roasted beet and carrot salad, purple sweet potato, and blueberry crumble, with grape punch to wash it down. “We have many new members and we wanted a fun way to introduce them to the campaign,” says Susan Macdonald, a past club president. The club showed a video on the history of PolioPlus, and a member spoke about her polio vaccination service trip. Many of the roughly 60 attendees dressed in purple. “I was blown away by the dedication and commitment to this project,” says Jim Stark, a new member.
2017
Year a rescued schnauzer adopted by monks at a Bolivian monastery became an internet sensation8,878
Cases of polio in Canada in 1953 during the disease’s peak
Trinidad and Tobago
In his native Trinidad and Tobago, legendary calypso artist David Rudder is known as “King David.” Yet many Trinidadians don’t know that as a toddler Rudder contracted polio, leaving him with a weakened left leg. In February, the Rotary Club of Central Port of Spain honored Rudder as a Paul Harris Fellow. The artist, who continues to perform at age 73, was feted during a gala aligned with the World’s Greatest Meal initiative, which supports the End Polio Now campaign. “By honoring Mr. Rudder, the Rotary club not only celebrates a towering cultural figure but also underscores the very real human impact of polio, a disease that Rotary and its global partners are working tirelessly to eradicate,” says former club member Kimberly De Souza. “His life story powerfully reinforces why the fight to end polio must continue until no child, anywhere, suffers from a preventable disease.”
Italy
District 2060 Rotarians and guests toured Italy’s fertile Po Valley in 40 vintage sports cars, tracing a portion of the route taken in the historic Mille Miglia race. On 21 June, the entourage “took in landscapes unknown to most, traveling along quiet back roads at an elevation of roughly 200 meters, spanning the area from the hills across the valley to the foothills of the Alps,” says Roberto Busetto, an event organizer and a past president of the Rotary Club of Padova. After gathering at Busetto’s childhood home outside the city, the drivers set off in their cars, and the tour concluded with lunch at a luxury hotel in Montegrotto. “Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors and participants,” Busetto says, “we donated about $3,000 to the polio cause and everybody received a red End Polio Now shirt.”
