It's an image seared into her memory. A wee boy, probably a new entrant, about five years old, his legs trussed in heavy metal callipers, struggling over a school field to a waiting ambulance.
'I can remember as if it was yesterday,” says Sally Morrison. In fact it was 60 years ago.
As a nurse of more than 40 years Sally witnessed a lot of sickness, pain and suffering. But it's the wee boy that touched, captured and then inspired her.
'I watched him every day as he struggled. He was only little and I was only little and I wondered what his problem was, why was he like that and not like the rest of us?”
Poliomyelitis – polio or infantile paralysis – is the highly infectious viral disease affecting young children. 'Sod of a thing,” says Sally.
She doesn't know the wee boy's name or anything else about him. But Sally Morrison knows he was the catalyst to confront the scourge herself, to help finish what science started 28 years, to wipe polio out once and for all.
'I'm not thinking dollars, I'm thinking kids and I'm thinking 45,000 kids,” ponders Sally.
But even so dreams like that come with a price tag. And Sally needs more than $5000, for starters, to achieve that level of immunisation.
So the furniture can go. 'I'd rather give it away than look at it and think how nice but not need it.”
After downsizing – moving from a sprawling 90-year-old home in early Devonport Rd to an apartment at the Mount – Sally had excess furniture. 'I went from a property that could accommodate to a property that can't.”
And in the problem lay the solution. Forty-plus pieces of her furniture will be put to the hammer to help pay for the vaccinations. 'Mainly period, not saying they're antique, not modern modern.” From bespoke mahogany dining suite with eight chairs, a personal favourite, to outdoor furniture and everything in between.
'There are a few sentimental pieces that I don't want to be rid of but it's for a good cause.”
And for every dollar Sally raises the international body of her Rotary Club will chip in $2. She'll have $15,000. Three kids immunised for every dollar spent, so that's 45,000 kids safe from poliomyelitis. The work will be done.
'This is exactly the reason I joined Rotary,” says the nurse, businesswoman and philanthropist.
Rotary on a world scale has been fighting polio for 30 years. And since it launched its Global Polio Eradication Initiative back in the 1985 the incidence has fallen 99.9 per cent – from 350,000 a year to just 26 this year. They are in Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan – just three counties out of 120.
And Nigeria has just reported another three cases after being incident free for a while.
'Having a disabled child must be difficult anywhere in the world let alone those countries. It must be hell. So if we can prevent just one child contracting polio which impacts the lives of the whole family and the whole community, then we should do it. And we can do it.”
The thrust to eliminate those remaining pockets of polio will start in the basement of Sally Morrison's apartment building.
The Tauranga Sunrise Rotary club is selling just 100 tickets to the auction on Saturday, November 12, at the Tay Street Apartments at Mount Maunganui
'We don't want spectators, we want people who want to be part of the auction to make a difference for the kids.” Viewing starts 3pm and the auction starts 3.30pm.
Entry is by ticket only. They cost $10 from Sally on 07 5741951 or Ursula Segalla 0274384695. Her email is ursula.segalla@proffing-it.com
Items for the auction can be viewed at: www.rotarypolioauction.org.
'It doesn't take much to make people happy,” says Sally. 'And of we can make a little kid smile then that's all I need.”