Above: Two boys with polio featured in a March of Dimes poster. (Courtesy of Central Oregonian/Bowman Museum and National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis).

The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was founded by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1938 to help victims of polio. The charitable non-profit was most famous for organizing the fundraiser March of Dimes, in which ordinary citizens were encouraged to donate dimes and loose change. Although the March of Dimes was not the first charitable organization created to fund the development of polio vaccines (the President's Birthday Ball Commission being a famous predecessor), the March of Dimes was unparalleled in its public reach; after a public appeal for dimes to be sent to the White House, roughly $268,000 worth of dimes were collected from its mailroom.

The Foundation paid for the bills of polio patients who couldn't afford the expensive treatment, the scientific research conducted by virologists like Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, and advertising campaigns to influence Americans to get their shots.

Below: a video about how the March of Dimes helped polio research (Courtesy of National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis)

Link if video player does not work. (Courtesy of National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis)