The Rotary Club of Austin-Southwest meets at DK Maria's Tex Mex located at
Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 45 years. Our goal of ridding the world of this disease is closer than ever.
Rotary's first polio project was to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979. Inspired by that successful vaccination campaign, Rotary went on to become a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, which has reduced polio cases around the world by 99.9 percent.
Thanks to the generosity and commitment of our members, Rotary has contributed more than US$2.9 billion in PolioPlus grants and countless volunteer hours to protect more than 3 billion children in 122 countries from this disease. Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than $11 billion to the effort.
Today, polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But it’s crucial to continue working to keep other countries polio-free. If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year.
Please donate to our fundraiser for Polio Plus 2026.
IF you are a Rotarian, be su
re to list the email you use to log into myrotary.org.
We successfully had a flash book drive earlier this month thanks to our connection with Streetbooks ATX. Rotarian Keith came across a very large amount of used books, and we knew it could go somewhere other than the landfill. Patrick Crowley with Streetbooks was able to take them, and he'll add them to his collection for books that go out on his mobile library. He also will donate some to Violet KeepSafe Storage as part of their library there. Because of our community connections, we were able to keep over 300 books out of the landfill and hopefully into the hands of someone in need of entertainment, comfort or a little bit of escapism. 
