The Rotary Foundation
Rotary is the oldest and most prestigious service club in the world. Its ranks include executives, managers, professionals – people who make decisions and influence policy.
The Rotary Foundation helps Rotary members to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace by improving health, providing quality education, improving the environment, and alleviating poverty. The Rotary Foundation recognizes couples or individuals as a Major Donor whose combined personal, or cumulative giving has reached $10,000 USD. All outright contributions made to the Foundation are included in this total, regardless of the gift designation.
Rotary Club of Macau has arranged Special Fundraisers to alleviate Polio and and other Foundation causes.
These include Macau Cup at Macau Jockey Club, our award-winning Gondola Grab at the Venetian, the World Greatest Meal and our sponsored End Polio walk.

Rotary Cup
On the 13th March 2010, Rotary Club of Macau and Rotary Club of Macau Central invited members and friends to the “Rotary Cup”, our sponsored horse race at the Macau Jockey Club. The event was arranged to raise funds for Polio Plus the Rotary International campaign to alleviate the polio virus.
Carrying a prize money of $545,000, “Rotary Cup” is a rating 70+ event over a distance of 1,200 meters on turf. The race was won by “Ecstatic Macau”. Following the race trophies were presented to the winning owner by President David Shelton-Smith (Rotary Club of Macau) and President Joy Choi (Rotary Club of Macau Central).
A joint meeting and auction was held at the Macau Jockey Club auction. Past President David Shelton-Smith recalls “We wanted to find an interesting and entertaining way to raise funds for the Polio Plus Campaign. We thought this would be a great opportunity to work with our fellow Rotary Clubs in Macao and to have a big joint event. With great support from the Macau Jockey Club, Rotary Club Macau Central and Rotary Club of Macau were able to arrange a suite and balcony. Pretty soon we had the support of our District Governor Ada Cheng and all our fellow clubs here.
This event not only raised funds for the vaccination drive but also raised our public profile. Many District Officers from Hong Kong made the trip over and joined us.

Gondola Grab
Light Up Rotary Great Gondola Grab Raffle Draw” was held on 7 December 2014.
The fund-raising campaign featured an opening ceremony at the Venetian Macao, where 10,000 miniature gondolas were lit up in the resort’s lagoon. As gondolas were simultaneously poured into the canal, cheers from the crowd turned to a hush while the boats twinkled across the water.
Thanks to the strong Rotary community and public sales points of our sponsor Sands China, all 10,000 raffle tickets were sold within a month. About 30,000 USD
was raised to support four local organizations: the Concordia School for Special Education, the Macau Autism Association, the Macau Down Syndrome Association, and the Guangxi Project of Rotary Club of Macau for education and poverty alleviation.

End Polio Fundraiser
Polio is commonly known as polio virus. The virus is spread from person to person, typically through contaminated water. It can attack the nervous system, and in some instances, lead to paralysis. Rotary and its partners launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988. Today, polio cases have been reduced by 99.9 percent. In the past few years, only two countries have reported cases of polio caused by the wild virus, but no child anywhere is safe until we’ve vaccinated every child.
Each year, Rotary members in Macao participate in different kinds of campaigns to raise awareness, funds, and support to end polio. A unique program held by the Rotary Club of Macau is the annual “World’s Greatest Meal to Help End Polio” charity dinner around Halloween time. In 2021, all eight Rotary clubs in Macao held a unified “End Polio Walk” in the Macau Tower to raise funds, virtually synchronized with similar programs in Hong Kong and Mongolia. Donations raised go to the End Polio Fund under Rotary International.