National Air Cargo Completes First Phase of “Operation Blanket Delivery”

ORCHARD PARK, NEW YORK – National Air Cargo and its sister company National Airlines today announced both companies completed the first phase of “Operation Blanket Delivery”, a collection and donation program started in early October 2009 to benefit orphaned children in Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul.

Employees from both companies’ worldwide offices collected over 1,000 blankets which were recently transported by a National Airlines DC-8 cargo plane to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The blankets were then distributed by National Air Cargo employees and officials from the Afghanistan Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, which oversees the orphanages, to the children of the two largest orphanages in the city that care for boys and girls aged 2 – 18 years old and are home to more than 600 children. Most of the children are separated from their families due to the ongoing conflict.

The idea for “Operation Blanket Delivery” came from Dale Deacon, National Air Cargo, Middle East sales manager, after he toured a number of orphanages in the Kabul area and witnessed first-hand the difficult conditions the children were enduring. Deacon, who has worked in Afghanistan since 2002, approached National Air Cargo and National Airlines CEO, Preston Murray, with the idea of supplying blankets to the children and with the full support of the humanitarian idea, Murray challenged the employees to participate in the collection and donation of blankets. This challenge has been embraced by the staff of both companies and in just over a month 1,000 blankets were collected.

“I didn’t give it a second thought to approve this type of a program and immediately sent a letter to all of our employees asking them to do as much as possible to assist in this compassionate effort,” said Murray. “I am so proud of the hundreds of employees who helped to collect or donate the blankets; in addition to our responsibilities to support our military men and women in Afghanistan we also have a humanitarian responsibility that we take very seriously.”

“First of all I would like to welcome the team from National Air Cargo and thank the families from all around the world who helped make the donation of blankets to the Afghan Orphans,” said Ghulam Ali Zainal who accepted the blanket donation as the President of the Department of Orphanages, Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of Afghanistan. We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.”

“When I first saw the conditions of the children in a tour of an orphanage in Kabul I knew there was something we could do as a company to help these children,” Deacon said. “This humanitarian gesture is testament to the dedicated workers at National Air Cargo who are stationed across the globe and who put themselves in harms way every day to support our troops.”

According to Murray due to the great success of the program and the many children it will help keep warm during the long Afghanistan winter the blanket program will be continued.