If you are considering a gift in 2010 and would enjoy helping the needy why not consider our own charitable Foundation, The Rotary Foundation. Donors receive a tax deduction of the gift and also would help the less fortunate people of the world.

In these economic times, The Rotary Foundation relies on the generosity and ingenuity of our most committed supporters. A charitable gift is just one creative and generous way for Rotarians to ensure that the Foundation can maintain and increase its ability to help others when it is needed most.

Giving to The Rotary Foundation is a financially sound way for you to help others. Contribute now to the Foundation .

Here are just some of the ways the Foundation can use your contribution:

	US$100 helps provide for one elementary school in Zambia.
	$500 helps provide a small watch-repair business for six disabled workers in the Philippines.
	$5,000 helps provide enough vaccine to immunize 10,000 children against polio.

Interested in checking our district's Rotary Foundation Contribution Record ? Click Here.

A child bathes in Río Bajabonico in La Grúa, Dominican Republic. Rotary club members have helped install 19,000 bio-sand filters, which make water safe to drink, through the Rotarian-led Children's Safe Water Alliance.

Worldwide, Rotary Foundation Matching Grants are saving and changing lives. Since the first Matching Grant was awarded in 1965, more than US$335 million has been distributed through more than 30,000 grants.

This is a tremendous achievement for Rotarians, who have made these grants possible through their generous donations to the Annual Programs Fund , and dedicated their time and talent to help carry out projects that put Service Above Self.

By giving $100 a year -- less than $2 a week -- to the Annual Programs Fund through the Every Rotarian, Every Year (EREY) initiative, Rotarians become part of the Foundation's mission to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty.

Repairing cleft palates

Australian, Dutch, and Indonesian Rotarians have helped repair cleft lips and palates for more than 2,000 children. One of the most common birth defects, clefts can interfere with eating, speaking, and breathing.

Thalca Hamid, an orthodontist from the Rotary Club of Surabaya Central, Surabaya, Indonesia, and two other club members began the project in 2001, arranging patient transportation, educating parents about postoperative care, and providing children with books and toys. Rotarians also recruited local villagers to talk to rural families about the benefits of the surgery.

"The children and their families have unbelievable pressure and stress because many feel that such defects are a curse, Hamid says. "Previously, few in our community realised how complicated this defect is. Read more.

New hope and self-esteem

The Bitone Center for Disadvantaged Children, located in Kampala, Uganda, is home to two dozen children ages 8-18. Many are orphans; others have lost their homes or been estranged from their families by disease, war, or economic hardship. The Rotary clubs of Kampala-East and Traverse Bay Sunrise, Michigan, USA, are providing support with help from a Rotary Foundation Matching Grant.

By connecting children to traditional Ugandan dance, music, and theatre, as well as providing shelter, food, and education, the center strives to give them new hope and self-esteem.

Without water, there is no life

In many parts of the world, people lack access to clean water, leading to disease and death. More than 3.5 million people die from water-related diseases each year, and more than 40 percent of those deaths are due to diarrhea, which UNICEF lists as the second-leading childhood killer. Polio also spreads through contaminated water.

Rotary club members have helped install 19,000 bio-sand filters, which make water safe to drink, through the Rotarian-led Children's Safe Water Alliance in the Dominican Republic. They've reached an estimated 100,000 people in 300 communities.

For seven years, more than 200 clubs in 18 districts in Canada, the Dominican Republic, the United States, and other Caribbean countries have supported the effort, as has the Foundation, with 30 Matching Grants.

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