March of Dimes

Hello! We are an organization called the March of Dimes. We started a very long time ago, in the year 1938. A president named Franklin D. Roosevelt helped start our group. Our very first job was to help people, especially children, who got sick from something called polio. Polio was a disease that could make it hard for people to walk and play. We wanted to find a way to stop it so everyone could be healthy.

To fight polio, we came up with a special idea. We asked everyone to help by sending us their dimes. A dime is a small coin, but when many people sent them, it added up to a lot of money! We used this money to help doctors and scientists who were working hard in their labs. One of these smart people was a doctor named Jonas Salk. He was trying to make something that could protect people from polio.

All that hard work paid off! With the help from all those dimes, Dr. Salk and other scientists made a special shot called a vaccine. This vaccine was a wonderful discovery. It taught people's bodies how to stay safe from polio. After the vaccine was ready, it helped keep so many children from getting sick. It was a huge success, and we were so happy to have helped make it happen.

After we helped stop polio, our work wasn't finished. We decided to take on a new mission. Today, we have a different job that is also very important. We work to help mothers have healthy pregnancies so their babies can be born strong and healthy. We want every single baby to have the best possible start in life. We help families and work to make sure babies are healthy from their very first day.