TORONTO, March 16, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Yesterday morning, dozens of GlobalMedic and Sunwing Foundation volunteers joined members of the local Antigua-Barbuda community at a packing party to prepare school kits for students of Barbuda, Antigua’s neighbouring island, as part of the ongoing recovery and rebuilding program following Hurricane Irma last September.
The two organizations came together to prepare 43 boxes of aid, that included backpacks filled with pens, pencils, paper and other necessities for learning together with general school supplies. The consignment also contained a significant donation of gently-used children books collected as part of the Sunwing Foundation’s recently introduced Flying Start initiative.
“We are pleased to be in a position to collaborate with GlobalMedic and deliver these much-needed supplies to our partner destination,” said Stephen Hunter, President & CEO of Sunwing Travel Group. “Supporting youth and education in the destinations where we operate is a key mandate of our foundation and the donation of our first round of gently-used children’s books collected through our Flying Start program together with a consignment of Sunwing Foundation backpacks is a great way to show our support.”
“It was amazing to see so many volunteers from Sunwing and the Antigua-Barbuda community come out to our warehouse to pack school kits and other supplies. GlobalMedic and Sunwing have been supporting Antigua & Barbuda since Hurricane Irma in September 2017. As Barbuda works to rebuild, it is important to provide continued assistance. This shipment will help children return to a sense of normalcy as they go back to school. Thank you Sunwing for your support and hard work!” commented Rahul Singh, founder and Executive Director of GlobalMedic.
All goods packed yesterday, are set to be flown down to Antigua and Barbuda on board Sunwing Airlines on Saturday, March 17th. The donation is expected to assist more than 400 local school children at the only elementary and secondary school on the island of Barbuda.
The Sunwing Foundation has had a longstanding partnership with emergency response charity, GlobalMedic. Following the impact of Hurricane Irma this past September, the foundation worked alongside the GlobalMedic RescUAV team to transport aid to affected people in Antigua & Barbuda, St Maarten and Cuba, delivering 1,000s of kilos of essential supplies that included hygiene kits, water purification tablets and building materials. The Sunwing Foundation also made a $20,000 donation to GlobalMedic this past December, following a charity drive on board Sunwing Airlines where Sunwing Travel Group matched funds raised as part of the airline’s spare change program over a six-week period.
For more information on the Sunwing Foundation, please visit www.sunwingfoundation.com.
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 188 disasters in 67 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. www.globalmedic.ca
Two photos accompanying this announcement are available at
http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/fcc432b0-b30e-4c15-8cd0-a2707d2c1f52
http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/92bdbcff-3909-4447-a0c8-4d3f75cb6647