ALPA, ILWU Pitch in with Aid for Pacific Disaster Victims

by Mike Hall, Nov 26, 2009

These ILWU members volunteered their time and labor to load 15 containers of supplies for tsunami victims.

Members of the Air Line Pilots (ALPA) and International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) didn’t wait until Thanksgiving or some other holiday to show their generosity. Like union members across the nation who offer support and aid to their communities all year round, pilots at Hawaiian Airlines—ALPA members—contributed $15,000 to the Red Cross for recent tsunami and typhoon victims in American Samoa, Indonesia and the Philippines. And last month in Los Angeles, ILWU members donated their time and labor to load 15 containers of supplies for the tsunami victims. Click here to read more.

Overall, the Red Cross-sponsored Kokua for the Pacific fundraiser in Honolulu raised $155,000. (Kokua is a Hawaiian word that means offering generous help.) Says Capt. Eric Sampson, chairman of ALPA’s Hawaiian pilot group:

Our pilots and many of our fellow employees have friends and family who live and work in these areas. We feel a definite connection with them. ALPA members were among the first Hawaiian Airlines employees to come forward and donate their time as volunteers when the tsunami hit Samoa and Typhoon Ketsana devastated Manila. Now we want to extend our support for those affected families by making a financial contribution.

The Kokua drew several thousand people and featured some of the island’s most prominent entertainers. Donations still can be made at www.kokuaforthepacific.com.

The Kokua donation is just the latest community helped by the ALPA members. Earlier this year, the Hawaiian pilots donated nearly two tons of food to the Hawaii Food Bank and recruited a team of pilot volunteers to help build a house in Waimanalo for Habitat for Humanity.

Today, ALPA pilots will be serving Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless at the River of Life Mission in Honolulu and also will pitch in with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve’s “Toys for Tots” campaign this Christmas. Says Sampson:

One of our union’s slogans is “We are ALPA.” We are Pacific islanders, too, and we are united in the common purpose of helping others, not just by flying people from island to island and to and from the Mainland, but by reaching out with a helping hand when they need one.

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