It’s true.. amazing people are everywhere!  Here at Give A Mile (GAM) we’ve had an incredible month. Behind the scenes we added bitcoin donations and a smoother workflow to allow direction of donated miles to specific stories on the GAM website.
True to the season of giving we’ve achieved some noteworthy targets as an oganization not the least of which was hitting a 1,000,000 miles-donated goal in just a couple of months. Our GAM Team goal was to reach the 1M mark by end of December and we were working special fundraising events and participating in additional awareness campaigns. This Thursday’s encouraging update was that we were within 60,000 miles, and to keep on pushing.  By Friday a generous donor had committed the ‘missing miles’ and we hit the 1 Million target. We expect to have awarded 72 flights of compassion by the end of 2014. People are awesome!
Another example of awesome is Cristel, who has stage-four cancer and whose story was recently featured on Global News Calgary. Cristel and her children are Give A Mile flight recipients who were followed as they excitedly packed their suitcases, traveled to the airport, and snapped a ‘selfie’ en route to visit her sister’s family in Whitehorse. Cristel, who was first diagnosed at age 30, spoke so matter-of-factly about the desire just to form “some history and memories†between the two sisters’ families in whatever time she has left and how GAM donated miles have allowed them to be, as journalist Jill Croteau expressed, “savouring the simple.†People have obviously been moved that a simple gift of unused loyalty miles/points can be turned into something so meaningful because donations picked up immediately after Cristel’s story ran.
Holidays are mostly about being with those you love. Some incredible people are getting to experience that joy one more time, thanks to the generosity of many others. Â In this season of giving we at Give A Mile would like to give you our heatfelt appreciation if you have made, or will make a donation of loyalty points or money. Thank you and happy holidays. Â May you spend it with those you love.