Watsonian Members' Donations Help Fight Polio and Vaccine-preventable Diseases

Bob Keegan, Watsonian Society's first Outstanding PHA awardee and current deputy director of CDC's Global Immunization Division, is among a small group of donors who recently announced a challenge gift to encourage donations to the CDC Foundation’s Endowment for Global Health Priorities. For a limited time, all first-time gifts to the endowment will be matched dollar for dollar, up to a total of $10,000 .

The Endowment was created in 1999 with gifts from CDC staff, retirees and other supporters, including Watsonian Society namesake and member, Bill Watson. The Endowment provides critical flexible funding to support CDC global health programs.

“This endowment allows us to focus on the real issues in the field, while rapidly resolving critical, frequently inexpensive operational problems that so often interrupt our work,” says Keegan. “It makes things work in small ways for big results.”

Through the Endowment, the Foundation has provided funding to purchase:

• funding for healthcare providers at women's hospital in Afghanistan
• bulletproof vests for vaccination teams in Somalia
• meals-ready-to-eat for teams in southern Sudan
• satellite images of herders and remote populations in Somalia
• incentives for vaccinators and parents in India and participants in a research study on the Mexican border
• a motorcycle for vaccine delivery
• other supplies needed to conduct public health programs in inaccessible and sometimes war-torn regions
  

Keegan and his fellow donors issued their challenge gift to ensure that this critical source of flexible funding is available to meet whatever challenges arise next for CDC global programs working to eradicate polio, control vaccine-preventable diseases and improve health in communities worldwide.

What you can do:

Make a Gift
Contact Melody Travis at 404.653.0790 or mtravis1@cdc.gov or give online (please note that you are a Watsonian Society member in the “comments” field).

Thank you! In response to a challenge gift made by Watsonian Society member Bob Keegan and his family and friends, contributions from Watsonians and other donors helped the CDC Foundation raise more than $20,000 between October 2006 and March 2007. Funds raised will support the Endowment for Global Health Priorities, a CDC Foundation endowment that provides critical flexible funding to support CDC global health programs. Gifts to the endowment from new contributors were matched dollar for dollar, up to $10,000.

The CDC Foundation and the donors who issued the matching gift challenge are extremely grateful to all the Watsonians who gave generously to this unique and important endowment.

Learn more about the CDC Foundation Endowment for Global Health Priorities

View Bob Keegan’s Slide Presentation about the Endowment

Download PowerPoint file (this download may take several minutes)