#4696: AAers' efforts aid Haitian orphans (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Bruce Wharram <bruce.wharram@sylvania.sev.org>

    A friend of mine from church, and whose husband is an American
Airlines pilot, gave me the July edition of American Airlines "Flagship
News".  Knowing that members of my family and I make short term mission
trips to Haiti on an annual basis, she thought that I'd be interested in
the front page story.
    This article describes how Denver Crew Chief William Dise carried
small amounts of humanitarian goods in his checked or carry-on luggage
to Haiti, but soon realized "like water in the dessert, the goods seemed
to be instantly sucked away".  Wanting to do more, he approached his
manager about sponsoring a trip to Haiti.  He convinced senior
management to "loan" him a fueled-up 757 to fill with supplies for
orphaned children.
    The article goes on to describe how pilots and flight attendants
volunteered their flying time.  While some members of the volunteer team
returned the aircraft to Miami for normal service, others stayed and
spent two days with some of the orphans, as well as painting the living
quarters of Mother Teresa's nuns who run the orphanage.  Also included
in the article are various pictures of the volunteer group.  I
recognized one member of the group who worked unloading the supplies in
Port au Prince - Daniele Longo, Customer Service Manager at the PaP
airport assisted our team through immigration and customs in 1998.
    Since there has previously been considerable discussion regarding
American Airlines, I thought the list might be interested in reading
about this humanitarian side of AA.  The complete article can be found
at <http://www.amrcorp.com/flagship/jul00.pdf>.  Acrobat reader is
required to read it.

Bruce Wharram