The married directors of the nonprofit Airline Ambassadors, the Rivards were working in overdrive to try and coordinate transport for more than 160,000 pounds of supplies and dozens of aid workers for the Caribbean nation.
But money was limited, their aid supplies were spread across America, and most importantly, time was running out for the Haitian victims.
 David and Nancy Rivard speak work the phones in an effort to help deliver aid to earthquake-stricken Haiti. The Moss Beach couple helps to run Airline Ambassadors, which regularly helps people in need all over the world. |
They still had contacts in Haiti, along with representatives in corporate aviation, the major U.S. aid organizations, and the U.S. Southern Command, the joint U.S. military organization that would eventually take over operations of Port-au-Prince Airport’s single landing strip.
Having those contacts made the Rivards’ nonprofit an invaluable tool for larger humanitarian organizations that had stockpiles of supplies and medical teams but few immediate ways transport them or get clearance to land them in Haiti.
On Friday afternoon, the Rivards worked frantically in their office — a spare bedroom in their California Avenue home equipped with two computer desks and filing racks. David Rivard juggled between his cell phone and the home land-line as he coordinated a conference call between United Airlines representatives, who had promised a jet airliner to ship supplies, and the aid directors for the Church of Latter-day Saints, who needed the flight as soon as possible.
But the logistics were a Gordian knot. The Mormon charity had 80,000 pounds of supplies in Denver, and another 80,000 in Miami. The United Airlines officials couldn’t guarantee how much they could ship or when. Everyone was frustrated.
“I’m a little disheartened here,” vented Sonya Jackson, president of the United Airlines Foundation, speaking on the call. “I was very specific with what we could provide, and I don’t know how this got lost in translation.”
Meanwhile, Lynn Samsel, the LDS’s director of humanitarian emergency response, was pressing for more cargo space and guaranteed seating for his teams of physicians.
David tried to hold the group’s arrangement together, while Nancy made calls to try and find a charter plane that could ship some of the Miami supply load. She made her pitch to the charter companies very cautiously — disasters often bring out opportunists who look to make a quick buck off the outpouring of relief, she warned.
It was around 4 p.m. and one of their interns announced that pizza arrived. Nancy hustled out to the kitchen and ate her first food of the day while she talked.
Originally, Nancy Rivard was working the management track at a major airline until she got disenchanted with the corporate atmosphere. As an escape, she signed on as a flight attendant at her company, a job she has kept to this day.
“I saw the world, and I saw the need out there,” she said. “And I saw people who wanted to make a difference.”
She started Airline Ambassadors in 1997 as a way to connect the airline industry with government agencies and charities; in the process, it has become like the travel agency for humanitarian aid. The organization has developed clout among airlines, and today more than 70 percent of its 6,000 members are employees in the industry.
Coincidentally, one project the nonprofit was pushing was the Codes and Safety for the Americas Act — a U.S.-developed set of improved seismic building guidelines for the developing world. The project to draft better building codes was organized by Airline Ambassadors after a devastating 2001 earthquake struck El Salvador and killed more than 2,000 people. The CASA guidelines are designed for low-income makeshift homes, but the codes are based on California’s own earthquake safety practices.
“Now we’re getting calls from people from embassies wanting this program,” David Rivard said. “Having a tragic earthquake is not an act of God, It’s an act off man because of poor construction.”
The earthquake struck Haiti last week as the CASA guidelines were being put on track for the impoverished country. Two weeks ago, the Rivards were discussing the CASA codes with the Archbishop Miot.
Taking a moment’s break from his phone calls, David Rivard looked weary.
Over the weekend, the Airline Ambassadors team was able to finalize arrangements for three flights to deliver aid supplies and medical teams, which would arrive on Sunday. Those transports would be followed by a fourth plane, from FedEx, delivering more supplies sometime this week.
“This disaster situation is in its infancy right now,” David Rivard said. “It’s almost crazier here than the streets of Haiti … Not to make light of that situation.”
Want to help?
Last week’s earthquake in Haiti set in motion a large number of efforts to send aid to the ravaged country. People interested in helping Haiti can make donation through the following organizations:
Airline Ambassadors — www.airlineamb.org, (866) 264-3586.
Puente de la Costa Sur —act.pih.org/page/outreach/view/haitiearthquake/Puente, (650) 879-1691
Haiti Emergency Relief Fund —www.haitiaction.net/About/HERF/HERF.html
Direct Relief International —www.directrelief.org, (805) 964-4767
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