TORONTO, Sept. 12, 2017 /CNW/ - Sunwing Foundation has partnered with emergency response charity, GlobalMedic, to bring humanitarian aid into destinations affected by Hurricane Irma. Our first humanitarian effort took place on Sunday September 10th, when a GlobalMedic RescUAV team travelled on a special rescue flight to St Maarten that was organized by Sunwing Airlines in collaboration with the local authorities. Their Rapid Response Team brought along 1,500 hygiene kits and enough water purification tablets to restore a million litres of drinking water for affected families as traditional water sources are contaminated due to the storm. The plane also carried 1,000 kilos of humanitarian aid.
Sunwing is also sending humanitarian aid in partnership with GlobalMedic today, September 12th, to be distributed to areas which are most in need across Cuba. The consignment was carried on a Sunwing Airlines special flight to Cuba that departed earlier this morning from Toronto Pearson International Airport to Varadero. Varadero Airport, which has been closed since Saturday, reopened for a brief period today to enable the operation of six Sunwing Airlines rescue flights.
A Sunwing rescue flight is also being planned to send aid with a GlobalMedic team to Antigua this coming Friday, September 15th.
For more information or to make a donation to GlobalMedic's Hurricane Irma relief, please click here.
About Sunwing Foundation
A charitable initiative established by the Hunter family, the Sunwing Foundation reflects the Sunwing Travel Group's enduring commitment to the support and development of youth in the communities where it operates in the form of project funding or the transport of humanitarian aid. The Sunwing Foundation takes no administration fees and passes on 100% of the charitable donations it raises through the airline's spare change program to the communities that need it the most, funding educational and skills development projects to provide a direct, impactful, and sustainable improvement to quality of life for years to come. Since its inception in 2015, the Sunwing Foundation has provided assistance to a number of sustainable projects, most notably the construction of the Spicy Hill Early Childhood Institution in Trelawny, Jamaica
About Sunwing Travel Group
The largest integrated travel company in North America, Sunwing Travel Group is comprised of Sunwing Vacations and Signature Vacations, two of the leading leisure tour operators in Canada; Sunwing Airlines, Canada's premier leisure airline; and Vacation Express, a growing tour operator in the United States together with the Group's own travel retail businesses SellOffVacations.com and Luxe Destination Weddings. Blue Diamond Resorts is the Group's hotel management company, an innovative organization that operates popular resort brands including Royalton Luxury Resorts, Memories Resorts & Spa and Starfish Hotels & Resorts across the Caribbean and Mexico; while NexusTours provides destination management services to both direct to consumers and in partnership to tour operators.
About GlobalMedic
GlobalMedic is a registered Canadian charity that runs capacity building programs and provides disaster relief services to large-scale catastrophes around the world. GlobalMedic has responded to 180 disasters in 62 countries, including earthquakes in Ecuador, Haiti, Japan and Nepal; tsunamis in Japan and Sri Lanka; typhoons in the Philippines and Taiwan; hurricanes in Grenada and Guatemala; cyclones in India, Myanmar and Vanuatu; floods in Bangladesh, Mexico and Pakistan; drought and famine in Kenya and Mauritania; epidemics in Liberia and Sierra Leone; and complex emergencies in Gaza, Iraq, Mali, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. GlobalMedic has been using innovative UAV technology to save lives since 2014. UAVs helped us respond to Typhoon Hagupit in the Philippines, the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, the 2016 earthquake in Ecuador, and the 2017 landslides in Colombia. Imagery captured by our UAVs identified the most vulnerable and affected communities, allowing our teams to deliver aid where it was needed most. Through these responses, GlobalMedic is emerging as a leader in the operation of UAVs in disaster zones. www.globalmedic.ca
SOURCE Sunwing Foundation
For all media enquiries, please contact: Rachel Goldrick, Senior Corporate Communications Manager, Sunwing Vacations, 1-800-387-5602 | [email protected]
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