Jan. 30: March of Dimes kickoff event set

Media release: The March of Dimes, the leading non-profit organization for maternal and infant health, will kick off its 75th anniversary Jan. 30 at the Cartersville Country Club. Sponsored by Georgia Power and South 107, the event will bring together supporters and teams for the 2013 March for Babies to begin preparing for the annual fundraising event to give every baby a healthy start.

 

"This year's walk chair persons are Rodney Scott and Janet Queen of Georgia Power Plant Bowen," said March of Dimes Community Director Michele Beal. "We're honored to have her on board and look forward to an exciting kick-off celebration."

 

Highlighted at the January 30 event will be guest speaker Betsy Burton. Burton is the great granddaughter of Basil O'Connor, a lawyer who, in co-operation with Franklin D. Roosevelt, started two foundations for the rehabilitation of polio patients and the research on polio preventions and treatment.

The March of Dimes chose January 30 to launch the year-long celebration as a way to honor the group's founder, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was born 131 years ago that day. In FDR's day, polio was an epidemic disease that paralyzed or killed up to 52,000 Americans, mostly children, every year. The March of Dimes fulfilled President Roosevelt's dream of a nation free of this fearful disease by funding the development of the first safe and effective polio vaccines by Dr. Jonas Salk (1955) and Dr. Albert Sabin (1962).