is that he founded the March of Dimes.
http://www.coinresource.com/guide/photograde/pg_10cRooseveltDime.htmRoosevelt Dimes 1946 - present Coin Guide
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What is known for certain is that the American public in 1945 was clamoring for some memorial to their fallen leader, whose passing had come just as he was about to enjoy a sweet victory after years of struggle and worry. As World War II was nearing its end in April of that year, Franklin Delano Roosevelt breathed his last, and the free world mourned. The nation's only four-term president died at 63, aged beyond his years by twin burdens of the greatest economic depression in the nation's history and the most devastating war of all time.
Within the Treasury Department, plans were quickly laid for the introduction of a new coin to honor Roosevelt. Since the late president had been afflicted with polio, or infantile paralysis as it was then commonly known, it seemed only natural to place his portrait on the dime. This humble coin was symbolic of the struggle to end polio through the "March of Dimes" fundraising campaign, a project begun during Roosevelt's first term.
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/bdtext.htmlEver since he contracted polio at the age of 39 in 1921, Franklin Roosevelt actively sought new treatment to improve his life, as well as the lives of all persons afflicted with infantile paralysis, donating as much money as he could and encouraging others to do the same. In 1924, Roosevelt's quest led him to Warm Springs, Georgia, where other polio patients experienced relief in the buoyant mineral water of Warm Springs. Confident that his six weeks in the waters of Warm Springs did more to improve his condition than any treatment he had received in the previous 3 years, FDR made a home for himself in Georgia, and invited other patients to join him. His presence, money, and prestige helped to make Warm Springs a world-class facility for the treatment of infantile paralysis.
When Warm Springs, a former resort area, faced economic hardship in 1926, Franklin Roosevelt purchased the facility for $200,000 and created a therapeutic center under the direction of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, later named the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation. The Warm Springs Institute opened its doors to patients all over the country, providing medical treatment and an opportunity to spend time with others suffering from the effects of polio.
Unfortunately, the facility in Warm Springs needed more than just Franklin Roosevelt's money to treat its growing number of patients, and he started asking friends for monetary contributions. Initially, Roosevelt's fund-raising campaign was a small-scale operation, but that changed when his associate Keith Morgan called upon business magnate Henry L. Doherty for a donation. Hoping to improve Doherty's public image and win him political favor with FDR, Carl Byoir, Doherty's public relations consultant, suggested that Henry Doherty sponsor a dance in every town across the country to celebrate the President's birthday and raise money for Warm Springs. With a $25,000 contribution, Doherty launched the National Committee for Birthday Balls. Although Doherty did not receive special political favor with FDR, Birthday Balls became an annual fundraising success.
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The Birthday Balls continued to generate approximately one million dollars per year, but the revenue was still not sufficient to support the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, created by Franklin Roosevelt in 1938 as a national organization to help victims of polio all across the country and not just in Warm Springs. To heighten awareness, radio personality and philanthropist Eddie Cantor urged Americans to send their loose change to President Roosevelt in "a march of dimes to reach all the way to the White House." Soon, millions of dimes flooded the White House, and this campaign became known as the "March of Dimes;" in 1945 the Foundation raised 18.9 million dollars. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, took the name of its popular campaign to become the March of Dimes. The funds raised by the Birthday Balls and March of Dimes financially supported the creation of a polio vaccine by Jonas Salk in 1955, eradicating the disease throughout most of the world by the 1960s.