The March of Dimes was founded in 1938 by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fight polio. Within only 12 years, the March of Dimes had amassed more than US$1 million in funds that helped researchers identify all three polio viruses. In 1954,the March of Dimes ran field trials of the polio vaccine with more than 1.8 million schoolchildren participating. This began the March of Dimes' concerted effort to save babies from birth defects. Key Club International began partnering with the March of Dimes in the 1960s by organizing dances, car washes, and bake sales to raise funds to further research to help reduce birth defects. Past Key Club members remember collecting dimes in hopes that someday children would be born free of birth defects.

      March of Dimes researchers, volunteers, educators, outreach workers, and advocates work together to give all babies a fighting chance against the threats to their health, specifically prematurity and birth defects.  Their purpose is threefold: providing health care, prematurity education, and genetic research.

      The March of Dimes educate pregnant women about precautions while having a healthy baby. The Pregnancy & Newborn Health Education Center is available to women to get free one-on-one, confidential answers to their questions about pregnancy, preconception, newborn screening and related topics. The March of Dimes also emphasizes premature birth research because each year, more than 460,000 babies are born too soon, some so small they can fit in the palm of a hand. Many of these babies must fight just to survive; others will struggle with lifelong health problems. Genetic birth defects leave our children unable to walk, to hear, to think, or even to fight off disease.

      Every day, more than 9 million children do not have health coverage.  Parents have to choose between feeding their child or buying the medicines for their children. For many of these children, this means they can’t get preventive checkups, immunizations, or treatment for common childhood illnesses. The March of Dimes is fighting so that all babies, children and pregnant women get health insurance.