V A N T A G E P O I N T
AMERICANWAY
JULY 1 2009
8
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participate in suchaworthy endeavor, and,
of course, it helps when you have a fleet of
aircraft and an army of volunteers at your
disposal. But anyone, and everyone, can
help. And I hope youwill, becausewehave
it in our power to give a generation of kids
— who until now have been forgotten —
the tools theywill need to learn, grow, and
buildabetter life.
Getting involved is easy. You can either
donatemoney— 100percent ofwhichwill
go to buy supplies for kids and offset ship-
ping costs — or organize a school-supply
drive through yourneighborhood school or
church, or through any other organization.
All overAmerica, organizations are assem-
bling items into kits and sending them to
the OIC warehouse in Kansas City, Mis-
souri. From there, the supplies are shipped
toIraq,Afghanistan,orDjibouti.Once they
arrive, theshipmentsarepickedupanddis-
tributed to childrenbyAmerican troops.
OIC does an enormous amount of good
forchildrenwhohavebeenbadlyneglected.
But the benefits of this program transcend
the tangible goodOICbrings to thousands
of schools, because by reaching out to help
kids a world away — kids we will likely
nevermeet—wenot only affirmAmerica’s
basicgoodness andgenerosity,wealsohelp
to foster goodwill and understanding be-
tweennations. I can’t think of a betterway
to celebrateour freedom than that.
I hope youwill visit
children.org and learnmore about how to
get involved. In the meantime, wherever
you’re going today, thanks for flying with
us.
OperationIraqiChildren
Gerard J. Arpey
Chairman&CEO
AmericanAirlines
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Thismonth brings one ofmy favorite holi-
days: the Fourth of July. It’s a celebration
of American independence and freedom.
Freedom is a precious gift, one I believe
comes with the responsibility to help those
less fortunate than ourselves. With that in
mind, I would like to use thismonth’s col-
umn to shine a light on a program called
Operation Iraqi Children (OIC), which is
devoted to giving some deserving kids a
chanceat abetter life.
OIC is agrassroots effort thatwas found-
ed in2004by actorGarySinise and author
Laura Hillenbrand. Its purpose is to give
concernedAmericans ameans to reach out
to Iraqi children and support the ongoing
effortsofU.S. troops toprovide the children
of Iraq with the kinds of basic school sup-
plies that American children often take for
granted.Forseveralyears,Americansoldiers
— having noticed that most Iraqi schools
lack books, pencils, blackboards, and other
essentials— have taken it upon themselves
to gather learning tools sent by family and
friends back home for the schools in need.
OIC was created to support those efforts,
and since its inception, it has delivered
200,000 school-supply kits and thousands
ofArabic-languagebooks, shoes,backpacks,
blankets, andpacksof sports equipment, all
of whichhave then been distributed by our
troopsdirectly to Iraqi children.OIC’s focus
has long been on Iraq, but the organiza-
tion recently expanded its program to also
include children in other nations, such as
AfghanistanandEastAfrica’sDjibouti.
Two months ago, American Airlines
teamedwithOIC tomake the largest one-
time shipment of supplies in the program’s
history.AAvolunteersorganizedandstaffed
an eight-day journey that took more than
20 tons of school supplies, new shoes, and
other items to the childrenof Iraq.
Wewere fortunate to have the chance to
