Just Say "No" to the Rotary Club & Pennies for Polio

You’re walking in a local mall when a conservatively dressed couple approach you about making a donation to clothe the children of war-torn Allepo. They present their credentials, and you present your wallet before walking away feeling good about yourself.

However, if you had just bothered to question the specifics of this great cause, you would have found out the items being shipped to Allepo were used theatrical costumes for which the couple would take a substantial tax write-off. Would you have felt quite as good?

We’ll inject here that your money is just that—yours. You may give as you wish, but it’s always a good idea to know just whom and what are receiving your donations. That brings us to “Pennies for Polio,” a current campaign supported by Rotary Clubs International.

Rotary Clubs support world peace through various projects. Obviously, any contribution Rotary Clubs or most other organizations may make to bringing peace to the world would be extremely hard to gauge, but we here at Shoalanda Speaks are all about “local.” In other words, whom do we place first?

If you visit various Rotary sites, you’ll read that through their efforts…and the efforts of others…polio has been 99.99% eradicated throughout the world. That statement would obviously fall into the “numbers don’t lie” category. One could similarly say “through the efforts of Shoalanda…and voters…25% of incompetent office holders have been removed from office."

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Pennies for Polio campaign is that it’s described as a turnkey project. We know a turnkey business is one where a minimum amount of work reaps a maximum of profits. Nuff said?

Yes, it would seem that schools and students are the principal workers in this project. They collect the money, send it to a central Rotary address, and Rotary harvests the kudos. Perhaps that’s a good life lesson in itself.

Yet the absolute bottom line to the sordid tale is the end of line for the donations. Rotary proclaims, with glee, that not one dime is spent on U.S. soil. Readers, is this where you want your money to go? At least as long as we have hungry children in the Shoals?

Why not adopt a local child via:

Sidney’s Safe

Or if you’re of the mind-frame that drug addicted parents confiscate food and toys from their children, why not donate here:

HASRA

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Want to make a further difference in our area? Instead of joining an organization like Rotary that concentrates on helping and giving outside the U.S., why not consider the Civitans?

Civitans - Helping in Their Own Communities