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Rod Funderburk, CART Fund Update
October 31, 2022 @ 8:30 am - 9:30 am
The CART Fund is dedicated to raising funds to provide “seed” money for cutting edge, high impact research in hopes of finding prevention and ultimately a cure for Alzheimer’s disease.
CART is a Rotary-initiated project that illustrates the amazing power of the Rotary Brand. By providing grants to researchers in the early and conceptual stages of a line of research, CART enables its grant recipients to explore approaches to arresting or curing Alzheimer’s Disease that may be outside the mainstream ideas being pursued by big pharmaceutical companies.
When one of these studies shows promise, it’s not unusual for a $100,000 CART grant recipient to attract an additional grant of a quarter or half million dollars from a larger foundation or perhaps a pharmaceutical company. So, once again, our dollars are multiplied by those with deeper pockets.
CART was founded by ONE Rotarian, Roger Ackerman, in ONE Rotary Club — Sumter South Carolina. From that beginning, CART has been adopted by all Rotary districts in Georgia and the Carolinas, many districts in Virginia and Florida as well as a number of individual clubs throughout the United States.
Like most things in Rotary, this is NOT something someone in Evanston thought up one day. In fact, it’s not an official Rotary International project at all – it gets no support from The Rotary Foundation. Rather, it’s just a great example of how things work in Rotary. Someone sees a need, has an idea for how to address it, and engages the Rotary network to make it happen.
The pocket change of Rotarians and, yes, some serious folding money and checks have resulted in 29 grants awarded since 1995, totaling $5.2 Million.