Kimberly Curtis (center) helps a Rotary National team immunize children in India. Kimberly Curtis, the daughter of Paul and Luann Curtis of Pickford, was a member of a team that recently won a business strategy competition and donated the prize money to a Rotary International program to eradicate polio in India. Miss Curtis traveled to New Delhi, India, to deliver the donation over the Thanksgiving holiday and witnessed the efforts of the disease eradication project first-hand.

Miss Curtis is a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, sponsored by the Sault Ste. Marie Rotary Club, and is studying in Australia for a master’s degree in business administration. She was selected to serve on a team representing Australia’s Brisbane Graduate School of Business (BGSB) while attending the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India (IIMA).

IIMA invited 33 universities from around the world to participate in a five-day strategy competition, called Confluence, which pairs established and aspiring leaders and managers to create foundations for tomorrow’s business enterprises, according to the Institute. Represented universities are Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, Dartmouth, University of Michigan, INSEAD, London School of Economics, and MIT.

Other Brisbane team members were Jim Efthimiou and Justin Robinson of Australia and Utkal Patra of India.

The team received first place in the Marketing Today and Tomorrow competition.

The BGSB team decided to donate the first-place prize money of 25,000 rupees (about $500) to Rotary’s Polio Plus program to eradicate polio in India. Workers in the Polio Plus program have a goal of eradicating polio, and in three years the number of cases has dropped from 1,600 in 2002 to 52 in 2005. Complete eradication is predicted by 2010.

After delivering the donation to the program, Miss Curtis journeyed through the slums of New Delhi with Rotary staff administering the vaccine to children.

“My eyes are wide open with awareness of the responsibility that comes with opportunity and ability,” Miss Curtis said. “It is both heart-wrenching and promising to hold a child, knowing that providing a simple vaccine can make a world of difference in their life. I will never forget this feeling.”

More than one million Rotary members have donated time or money to immunize two billion children in 122 countries. In 1988, Rotary efforts were the catalyst for a global eradication drive joined by the World Health Organization, Unicef, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. In 2000, Rotary teamed up with the United Nations Foundation to raise $100 million in private money for the program. An article in The Wall Street Journal this year marked the 50th anniversary of the Salk vaccine and commented that Rotary's polio eradication effort deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

Miss Curtis, a 2002 graduate of Michigan Technological University with a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, will be graduated from Brisbane Graduate School of Business in April 2006 with a master’s degree in Business Administration.