Port Dawgs' Global Impact

  • Published
  • By Gene H. Hughes
  • 908th AW Public Affairs
MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. --  From delivering beneficial flies to much-needed supplies, from Puerto Rico to Pakistan, the 908th Airlift Wing has assisted with numerous humanitarian relief operations around the world during the past 50-plus years.

Recently, the Airmen of the 25th Aerial Port Squadron wrote another chapter in that history, assisting in palletizing cargo bound for Central America, collected by Global Impact, a nonprofit international humanitarian relief organization based in Prattville.

Global Impact regularly sends shipments to impoverished areas where missionaries are serving overseas, such as the recent shipment to an orphanage in Puerta Lempira, located on the Mosquito Coast in northeastern Honduras.

"Global Impact helped collect desperately needed items from individual donations and from other relief organizations, like Christian Service Mission," said Angie Hayden of Global Impact. "Currently there are over $30,000 worth of aid supplies (medical supplies, hospital bedding, children's shoes, etc)  on its way to Honduras thanks to the men and women of our amazing Air Force."

When this type of help is needed, the Airmen of 25th APS receives the request from the Denton program manager and contacts the user.

"We then receive the cargo, check it and palletize it for shipment on a military aircraft," said Chief Master Sgt. Harold Whited. "We take care of all the paperwork, weighing, marking load plans, staging and loading. This shipment, consisting of medical and school supplies, was made up of four pallets weighing 6,400 pounds."

Once the cargo arrived and was palletized, Hayden was given the opportunity to come out to Maxwell and meet some of the men there as they loaded the shipment. 

"I was so impressed with Chief Master Sergeant Whited and his men," she said. "Not only were they professional, welcoming to me personally and eager to help, but many asked questions about our organization and showed a sincere caring and interest in what we do. I could not have been more proud and grateful of our servicemen and women."

"This is a two-fold plus for the 25th," Whited said. "We have the opportunity to handle and process cargo as well as do something that will better a third-world country.

In addition to sending humanitarian relief to missionaries all over the world, Global Impact also serves at a local level, including delivering juice and snacks to an Autaugaville school which didn't have the necessary funds. They also keep an emergency response trailer ready for natural disaster relief.