So you want to end polio?

Far from the vaccination front lines, the eradication fight begins in everyday spaces — thanks to enterprising Rotary members

By Etelka Lehoczky

In a college town on the shores of Lake Michigan, beer drinkers gather in a wood-paneled taproom to sample brews with names like Snowy Owl, Secret Stuff, and Funkin’ for Jamaica. Cute beer names are part of the charm at Sketchbook Brewing Co. in Evanston, Illinois. But one of October’s recipes owes its moniker to something much larger than whimsy.

“Purple Pinkie is named for the mark that children are given when they’re vaccinated against polio,” says Julie Aubry, a member of the Rotary Club of Evanston Nouveau. She’s referring to the splotch of indelible ink dabbed on a child’s pinkie to show they’ve already been vaccinated — a symbol of the historic campaign to rid the world of the disease.

That backstory is an opening to meaningful conversations that go far beyond the intricacies of craft brewing. “We like to think of it as an educational opportunity to bring awareness to the fact that polio has not been eradicated, that it is still a fight that Rotary and other organizations are fighting,” Aubry says. Even the wheat ale’s distinctive taste is connected to the larger story: The brewers add coriander, pomegranate, and citrus zest in homage to the culinary flavors of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the only two countries where wild polio remains endemic. But this is not just about raising awareness. Aubry’s club collaborates with Sketchbook to create the limited-edition Purple Pinkie beer to direct proceeds to the eradication effort.

Aubry and other Evanston Nouveau members are gathered on the eve of World Polio Day 2025 to tell Sketchbook’s patrons about Purple Pinkie and the cause it supports. Erecting a large banner by a table in the middle of the bar, Aubry and Tom Woods arrange raffle prizes and a display that includes a vaccine cooler and a surprisingly cute plush toy in the shape of the polio virus. Customers can get Purple Pinkie on tap and take home four-packs of specially designed cans — purple, of course, featuring an arm raised triumphantly, pinkie extended.

A bespectacled young man named Dan, a student at nearby Northwestern University, grabs a four-pack from the cold case. “I usually do a mix of different varieties, so I’ll probably add this to the repertoire. It seems interesting,” he says. “When you can support a good cause, it’s always great. Unfortunately, with the current state of the world, polio has become more of a topic than it probably should be.”

Evanston Nouveau members got the idea for Purple Pinkie in 2022. “We were thinking about creative ways to get people interested in polio,” says Club President Gerald Farinas. “A lot of clubs do ‘pints for polio,’ where they’ll partner with a tavern and get them to contribute a couple of bucks from each drink. We thought, ‘We’ve got to go beyond that.’”

Working with Sketchbook, the club crafted a unique, memorable beer and an effective fund-raising plan. Each fall, Sketchbook donates a dollar from each pint of Purple Pinkie served on tap and another dollar for each four-pack sold. The campaign contributes $2,000 to $3,000 to the antipolio effort. That may not sound like much, but multiplied by many hundreds of fundraisers across the globe, these World Polio Day efforts drive Rotary closer to its annual fundraising goal of $50 million.

There’s something in it for the club’s partners at the brewery too. “The Rotary club makes a good amount of noise around it, so we get noticed. All the buzz helps a lot,” says Cesar Marron, Sketchbook’s head brewer and managing partner. “It looks very different from our normal cans, so it brings in a lot of questions. It’s super unique.”

A couple of days later, the club held another Purple Pinkie event at Sketchbook’s other taproom in neighboring Skokie, Illinois. Attendees got the chance to meet members of the Chicago Stars, a National Women’s Soccer League team the club has collaborated with before. Such connections have a lot to do with the fundraiser’s success, Farinas says. It was natural to reach out to Marron, whom some members were acquainted with. And to design that eye-catching Purple Pinkie can, the club tapped a staff member at Rotary’s world headquarters in Evanston, Chris Brown, an artist who has designed album covers and one other beer can for the brewery.

“It’s easier to go where you already have these relationships than to look for the best possible business partner you can think of,” Farinas says. “We could have done that, but then the negotiation would probably have been much more difficult. It’s easy to approach people you already know.”

Now that’s some treasured taproom advice. What else can we learn on a global tour of World Polio Day fundraising efforts? Plenty. Key among the findings: This is a golden opportunity for clubs to connect to the power of Rotary’s global network, bond your members through a meaningful long-term project, increase your visibility in the community, and, just as importantly, have some fun.

Doughnuts for dollars

United States

As a franchise owner for Dunkin’, the largest doughnut chain in the United States, Dave Baumgartner knows more about flour, frosting, and deep-frying than fundraising. But when Margo Hughes, the franchise marketing manager and fellow member of the Rotary Club of Knoxville, Tennessee, suggested he sell purple-frosted doughnuts for World Polio Day 2018, he knew a good idea when he tasted it. Seven years later, he’s helped clubs across the American South and Northeast raise $7.7 million for polio eradication. It hasn’t all been smooth frosting: He once mistakenly shipped five buckets of purple icing overnight to a baker in another state. Still, “it’s been a great program,” he says. “People need to feel good about eradicating polio worldwide, and that takes some education.”

Car-free, polio-free

Rwanda

The city of Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, holds car-free days two Sundays a month to promote physical fitness and environmental awareness. Thanks to Rotary and Rotaract clubs across the country, participants in October also learned about polio eradication. Wearing bright red shirts and waving colorful banners, around 2,000 Rotary members led a Walk Against Polio around the city before gathering at a stadium for a mass workout. “We had an opportunity to speak directly to the public at the stadium,” says Alexis Muderevu, president of the Rotary Club of Kigali. “There was also a press conference for newspapers and television.” The presidents of Rwanda and Senegal attended the stadium event, and the Rotary members raised about $7,000. “We had not planned to collect donations from the public; we did it among ourselves. After the fundraising campaign was completed, many people had made contributions,” Muderevu says.

A sound investment

Switzerland

The strains of Tchaikovsky and Dvořák filled the air at the Culture and Congress Centre in Lucerne, Switzerland, on 27 October. The renowned Stuttgarter Philharmoniker performed a benefit concert for attendees from across Europe and around the world. Organized by Rotary districts in Switzerland and Germany, the concert raised around $85,000 for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. The concert’s impact went beyond one night since Rotary members met with representatives of governments and the World Health Organization at events leading up to it. “It was advocacy and awareness around the whole of Switzerland,” says Christian Schleuss, a member of the Rotary Club of Hagen/Westphalia, Germany. “They had a big presence in television and media the week before. It was an important part of this event.”

A made-for-social moment

Mexico

On a sunny day around Halloween, students at Universidad de Monterrey in Mexico gathered for a fundraiser involving, well, pumpkins of course. The Rotaract Club of Universidad de Monterrey provided paints, brushes, and a supply of pumpkins for attendees to decorate. As students, they didn’t have much cash to donate, but more importantly, the event raised awareness around campus about Rotary, the fight against polio, and the club’s other activities, says Club President Lizbeth Palacios Martínez. And students spread the word further by posting about the event and their holiday decorations on social media.

Petals against polio

Netherlands

What could be more Dutch than tulips? Since 2014, Rotary districts in the Netherlands have harnessed this prized symbol of their country’s identity to raise money to fight polio. They sell End Polio Now tulips — or, more accurately, their bulbs — to gardeners across Europe. The clubs contracted with a grower in the province of North Holland to create a new variety of tulip, whose red-and-yellow petals match the End Polio Now colors. In response to concerns about the tulip industry’s environmental impact, the districts recently began selling organic bulbs as well. “The market and the local authorities like to have organic tulips. So this year, for the first time, we offered them also,” says Siebe Stellingwerff Beintema, a member of the Rotary Club of Voorhout. The organic bulbs made up a fifth of the 2025 orders, and the fundraiser brought in around $175,000.

Till the end of the line

Australia

In any great effort, it’s often said that the last mile is the hardest. Mark Anderson knows all about that, literally. He can tell you, for instance, just how long it takes to ride all 190 or so stops on the public rail network in Sydney: more than 18 hours. Starting at 4:30 a.m. and riding until close to midnight, Anderson and his son Dave traverse the system every World Polio Day. They’ve been at it since 2018. Members of area clubs, including Anderson’s Rotary Club of Bee-croft, join in for part or all of the journey. Riders collect pledges for each station they visit, bringing in about US$70,000 in 2025 and US$572,000 since the fundraiser began. The effort is personal for Anderson, whose father had polio and had to wear leg braces as a child. The marathon rides are wildly popular with the media, and Anderson has gotten used to conducting live radio interviews throughout the day. He even found himself speaking live on national TV as he rumbled along on the train. “They rang and said, ‘ABC national news wants to pick it up. Do you have Zoom on your phone?’” says Anderson, who is a regional major gifts officer for The Rotary Foundation. “Then the producer from ABC rings and says, ‘You’re going to air live in three minutes.’ That blew me away.” 

Light a fire

United States

When they heard that Indian Rotarians were circulating an Olympic-style torch to celebrate the country’s polio-free status, district End Polio Now coordinators Nancy Barbee and Colleen Bonadonna were intrigued. What if they were to carry the torch on a similar journey across North America, winding up at the 2025 Rotary International Convention in Calgary, Alberta? When they were able to obtain the now-well-traveled torch, Barbee and Bonadonna set out on a winding route across the center of the U.S. From Tennessee to Illinois to Minnesota to South Dakota and beyond, they visited Rotary clubs and spoke at schools and town halls. Local clubs served as their advance teams at each stop. “Every place we went, we tried to do some big public image event,” says Barbee, a member of the Rotary Club of Jones County, North Carolina. “Our job was to bring awareness and education, to explain why we need to continue. It was their job to get the press there and do follow-up afterward.” The pair raised $600,000 for polio eradication with their odyssey, collecting donations through the Raise for Rotary crowdfunding portal.

This story appears in the May 2026 issue of Rotary magazine.