Over 100 area Rotarians participated in the first Rotary Work Day at Roosevelt Warm Springs March 31 as part of the ongoing Adopt A Cottage Campaign designed to restore and re-purpose the 14 core cottages of the Warm Springs National Historic Landmark District.

Working from 9:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., the Rotarians dismantled and began restoration on several cottage porches, initiated interior work on both the original Foundation Apartments and Pierson Cottage, which will eventually combine to become the Ann Johnson Heritage Center at Warm Springs, and did some landscaping at the center of campus and Camp Dream.

The Coweta-Fayette Rotary Club has adopted the historic Bradley Cottage for concentrated efforts. Bradley Cottage was the Warm Springs’ get-away of Columbus’ W. C. Bradley, a cotton and steamboat tycoon and one of the original owners of Coca-Cola. In recent years, it has served as home of the Roosevelt Warm Springs Development Fund.

It was all part of Rotary District 6900’s ongoing commitment to restore the Warm Springs Historic District before 2017, when Rotary International’s worldwide conference will be held in Atlanta.

Roosevelt Warm Springs and Rotary International share a common legacy of polio eradication.

Warm Springs is where Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated polio treatment in the 1920s and where the March of Dimes began, and Rotary is one of the four global partners (along with UNICEF, World Health and the CDC) still striving to eradicate polio worldwide.

As of this year, only three countries remain on the polio endemic list — Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.