An Iowan who’s a pilot has completed two missions to raise worldwide awareness of Rotary’s push to end polio.
This fall, Peter Teahen of Cedar Rapids and a pilot from New Jersey took a 37 day journey this fall across the Atlantic and raised a million dollars for the Rotary Foundation. “As long as polio is there, we’ll remain in the sky to raise awareness and money to eradicate polio once and for all,” Teahen said.
Teahen co-piloted a single-engine plane around the world in 2023 and raised over $2 million for the effort. Teahen notes each shot of polio vaccine costs just $2 and the Gates Foundation is matching the donations. “Your $3 matched by the Gates means that there’s three children in the world that won’t have polio, so you don’t have to give $100. You don’t have to give $1000,” Teahen said. “Any amount makes a difference.”
Teahen’s co-pilot and fellow Rotarian on that 2023 mission was John Ockenfels of Swisher. There are fewer than 270 pilots alive today who’ve flown around the globe and Ockenfels said they intentionally took the Rotary logo off their plane — just in case. “This was so visible, so big, so audacious that if you crack this airplane up and all of a sudden it’s all about Rotary, Rotary comes up with a black eye in a big way worldwide,” Ockenfels said.
The two men flew more than 30,000 miles over the course of three months — including an 18 hour flight from American Samoa to Hawaii, followed by a 17 hour flight from Hawaii to California. Ockenfels and Teahen travel to Rotary clubs around the country to talk about their journey and Rotary’s global effort to eradicate polio. Over the past 40 years, the organization has helped immunize more than 2.5 billion children against polio in 122 counties. Polio remains endemic in just two countries — Afghanistan and Pakistan.
