That old saying that “every little bit helps” is alive and well with The CART Fund. If you’ve never heard of it, here is the meaning of this acronym – Coins for Alzheimer’s Trust. The blue CART buckets are again on the tables at the Rotary Club of Farragut’s (RCF) weekly meetings.

Started in one South Carolina Rotary club in District 7770 in 1995 by a Rotarian named Roger Ackerman (Sumter, South Carolina), CART has been adopted to date by 23 Rotary districts across the United States, including our District 6780 in East Tennessee, and in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Florida. This fund is dedicated to raising funds to provide “seed” money for cutting edge, high-impact research in hopes of finding a cure/prevention for Alzheimer’s.

Rotarians are asked to drop their lose change – and greenbacks, too – into the blue buckets and as of May 2022, CART has awarded $11.2 million in 64 grants to recognized U.S. research institutions. All administrative expenses of the fund are paid from interest earned from invested contributions.

And unlike many charities, the CART Fund by-laws require that 100% of all donated funds – every cent – must go to Alzheimer’s research and all contributions are tax deductible. CART is a 501(c)(3) organization. Its tax ID # is 31-1466051.

For a number of years Farragut Rotary supported the CART fund, but when Covid struck in the spring of 2020 nationwide that ended – along with our in-person meetings. The club eventually resumed meeting weekly using an online platform many others used – Zoom. Once we resumed our in-person meetings at Fox Den Country Club, the blue buckets had disappeared and no one championed the cause.

Until Farragut Rotarian Tom Woodbery stepped in and agreed to be that champion. The club’s board of directors at its October meeting unanimously approved resuming this great project, and so the buckets are back as we again join the other Rotarians in supporting Alzheimer’s research.

Worldwide, 55 million people are living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative brain disease and the most common form of dementia. Dementia is not a specific disease. It’s an overall term that describes a group of symptoms, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. An estimated 6.5 million Americans age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer’s in 2022. Seventy-three percent are age 75 or older.

Let’s fill up the buckets!

Tom King has been the editor of newspapers in Texas and California and also worked in Tennessee and Georgia and is a past president of the Rotary Club of Farragut.