The Fourth Avenue of Rotary Service is International Service. Through the numerous humanitarian, intercultural, and educational programs of Rotary International, The Rotary Foundation and our district and club, we work to realize Rotary's vision of improving the human condition and advancing world understanding and peace. 

• Rotary's Humanitarian Programs sponsor international projects to improve the quality of life by providing health care, clean water, food, education, and other essential needs primarily in the developing world.
• The largest and best known of Rotary's international efforts is PolioPlus, which seeks to eradicate the poliovirus worldwide.
• Rotary International is the spearheading member of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and is the largest private sector donor. It has contributed more than $600 million to the polio eradication activities in 122 countries, and the Gates Foundation recently expressed its support by contributing $350 million to the cause.
• Our Club has contributed to date $225,000.00. In addition, tens of thousands of Rotarians have partnered with their national ministries of health, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and with health providers at the grassroots level in thousands of communities. Today, Polio has been eradicated in most of the world, and exists in only four countries. PolioPlus has been a huge success, no matter how you measure.
• Our club has sponsored a number of programs with help from Rotary International and our Rotary District. Among these are a micro-lending program in Belize, done in conjunction with a Rotary Club there and business students at Bellarmine University who devised the plan for providing loans to worthy individuals.
• The International Service committee started a program called Saving Lives Worldwide, which delivered medical supplies to third world countries.
• Our club has also sponsored a project bringing fresh water to an isolated community in Africa.
• Through its Educational Programs, the Rotary Foundation provides funding for a many programs that bring people from different cultures together in order to advance world understanding and peace.
• Some 1,200 students are funded to study abroad each year through Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarships and become involved with Rotary before, during and after their terms. International students come to the United State,s as well.
• Grants are also awarded to university teachers to teach in developing countries and for exchanges of business and professional people
• The Foundation also sponsors Group Study Exchange Teams to improve international understanding by enabling people from different countries to learn from each other. The awards involve the exchanging of teams of business and professional persons for a one-month visit to another country.
• There are many other programs directed to this purpose as well. 

Rotary is living up to its motto of "Service Above Self" when it engages in these important international programs. As an individual, we hope you will also take advantage of visiting Rotary Clubs as you travel overseas. It is another form of "exchange" that helps that purpose of increasing understanding among peoples, and promoting peace.