The Rotary Club of Windsor is looking to take a stand against polio.
They're hosting the 6th Annual Pigout For Polio event this evening from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. at the Serbian Centre, located at 6770 Tecumseh Rd E.
The evening will include a BBQ dinner, performances by Bad Moustache as well as guest speakers Nick Krayacich and Aruna Koushik, providing an update on the status of global polio eradication and their personal experiences with this vaccine-preventable disease.
Co-chair Nick Bibic says Rotarians have been working towards eradicating Polio for the past 35 years and they're getting really close to their goal.
He says October 24 is World Polio Day.
"There's over 46,000 Rotarians world wide, and membership is in excess of 1.4 million members that joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to come together to share our progress and our road to eradication of the highly infectious disease."
Bibic says thanks to the support of the community it's clear they recognize the needs, and will go a long way to helping them hit their goal.
He says the last event they held, they generated more than $5,000 which was forward to Rotary International as a $15,000 donation thanks to the foundation.
"Which at that time, which was 2018 I believe, it helped and generated medicine to save 25,000 children from this terrible disease," he stated.
Proceeds from Pigout For Polio this year will be used to protect children five and under from this horrible and preventable disease in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Polio remains endemic.
Bibic says their goal is to see Polio become the second disease eradicated after Smallpox.
"We were not able to do much during the pandemic, but here we are immediately afterwards when we're able to and allowed to get get together, here we are back in the trenches as far as the Rotarians," Bibic said.
Proceeds from the event will be tripled by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support the eradication of Polio.
- with files from AM800's Rob Hindi