Jan Gisborne, past president of the Rotary Club of Powell River, attended the Action Zone Summit for Rotary Zones 28 and 32 last week. Its purpose is to train incoming district governors and other district leaders from four countries: Canada, USA, Bermuda and France (St. Pierre and Miquelon).
Gisborne, one of 400 Rotarians in attendance, will be district governor for District 5040 in 2025/2026, the first person in the Rotary Club of Powell River to be selected for the position.
“I’m grateful for the opportunities my club has provided to me,” she explained, “and to the personal support members have given since I joined Rotary in 2002.”
Gisborne also served as assistant district governor for the clubs on the lower Sunshine Coast: Gibsons, Sechelt and Pender Harbour.
During the event, Ahmed Hussen, minister of international development, announced the Canadian government has pledged $151 million for polio eradication. This latest donation brings to $1 billion the total provided by successive federal governments.
“I would estimate our club in Powell River has provided many thousands of dollars to eliminating polio in the world,” said Gisborne, who herself is a polio survivor. “Each year we budget from between $1,000 to $2,000, and our club will celebrate its 70th anniversary next year.”
Rotary launched PolioPlus in 1986 and was a founding member of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988. At the time 350,000 children in 120 countries were affected each year by this crippling disease. Through decades of commitment and work by Rotary and its partners, more than 2.5 billion children have received the oral polio vaccine.
Polio is now endemic in only two countries but the war in Gaza has seen polio cases emerge precipitating a huge effort to vaccinate children there.
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