Pizza for Polio Fundraiser - Martin Cheung

Last Friday was World Polio Day, the perfect day for us to hold our annual Pizza for Polio fundraiser on Locust Walk. We sold pizzas from eight local restaurants on the University of Pennsylvania campus to raise money for polio eradication efforts, ending the day with a total of $339.60 to pay for polio vaccines. People also had the chance to vote for their favorite pizza, and the winning restaurant (Axis Pizza) was advertised as Penn’s favorite pizza place.

World Polio Day is sponsored by Rotary International, whose PolioPlus Project is an initiative to completely eradicate polio, a crippling disease that once affected almost 350,000 children a year. Thanks to immunization campaigns, polio is now only endemic in two countries today (Pakistan and Afghanistan), and we are close to eradicating it entirely. Anyone interested in this worthy campaign can visit www.endpolio.org or like their Facebook page.

Over the last few weeks, we contacted over a dozen local pizza restaurants to see if they were interested in contributing pizzas to this worthy cause. Although we encountered difficulties in communication, we eventually secured the support of eight vendors. We also created a Facebook event page to publicize Pizza for Polio to the Penn community. The day of the fundraiser, we picked up the pizzas around 11am and set up our table on Locust Walk near the compass.

It actually turned out to be a great day for us to sell pizza. With a football game the next day and parents visiting for Family Weekend, there were a lot of booths on Locust Walk and many people who passed by our table. We sold pizza for $1/slice, $5/all-you-can-eat, and $12 for a whole pizza. Pizza for a dollar was too good a deal to pass on, and many people stopped by to buy a slice and learn about our fundraiser’s purpose. After running out of pizza around 4pm, we raised a total of $339.60, almost $60 more than last year! The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation generously triples every donation made, so every $1 pays for 5 vaccines.

I was the photographer for the event and reserved a Canon 70D DSLR Camera from Van Pelt Library. Click here to view the entire album on Facebook.

Thank you to the eight restaurants who donated pizza, without whom this fundraiser would not have been possible! All of them are within walking distance of the University of Pennsylvania campus, so check them out.

Allegro Pizza and Grill: Website / Facebook

Axis Pizza: Website / Facebook

Colonial Pizza: Website / Facebook

Ed’s Wings and Pizza: Website / Facebook

Evan’s Pizzeria: Website / Facebook

Royal Pizza: Website / Facebook

New Style Pizzeria: Website / Facebook

Zesto Pizza and Grill: Website / Facebook

Cherry Blossom Gala - April 23, 2009

Rotaract Club of Philadelphia hosted an annual benefit called the Cherry Blossom Gala on April 23, 2009. It was held at the Triumph Brewing Company in Old City, Philadelphia. This year we raised support for an international project called Adopt a Village (AAV)(www.toadoptavillage.org).

AAV is an international effort to raise a village out of poverty, which was started by a Rotarian from the Rotary Club of Sebastopol, California. This US-based Rotary Club partners up with a Rotary Club in an impoverished region of the world, who then selects, surveys, and contacts a local indigenous village. The US-based Rotary Club promotes and collects funding for a specific village. In 2008, at the height of its publicity, the founder presented the project on “Rotary International at the UN Day.”

Our club is partially sponsoring a village in Uganda, Africa, called Mbazzi. It is made up of approximately 1200 people. AAV will use our donations along with others to improve on three main components of the village’s life: Education, health and hunger. Those are the pillars of Adopt of Village - AAV believes that one cannot be achieved without the other two elements.

To raise funds for this project, we organized the Cherry Blossom Gala where our guests enjoyed wine and beer at the bar and display-style hors d'oeuvres. We decorated in spring fashion with sunny flower arrangements on tables. With the cooperation of international and local artists, we hung up paintings and photographs, which guests could bid on in the silent auction or purchase for the full price.

Aside from the silent auction tables that were crowded with beautiful artwork, we also had donated items from local businesses that submitted theater tickets, sports tickets, spa baskets, wine arrangement and others.

Halfway through the evening, we generated additional revenue by auctioning a date with one eligible bachelorette and bachelor. Rotaract Club of Philadelphia gave complimentary Philadelphia Museum of Art tickets to the highest two bidders.

The club made over $1,300 in profit that would benefit Adopt a Village.