Virgin Atlantic passengers contribute to charity

A new program from Virgin Atlantic is helping to generate money for charity.  Every passenger onboard a Virgin Atlantic flight in the Caribbean is given an envelope.  The envelope is for the charity change for children which allows passengers returning from foreign areas to place the monies that they have collected from their vacation, which is likely to be worthless to the passenger upon their return home, in the envelope.  The envelope is then distributed to the charity.  Nearly 500,000 passengers fly Virgin Atlantic each month in the Caribbean area.

A spokesperson for the charity change for children organization said “This charity receives hundreds of bids for these funds from charities all over the Virgin network of destinations and it was therefore a great achievement for the Caribbean operation recently to beat out charities from India, Africa and China when it successfully submitted a bid on behalf of the Variety Club of Barbados for the funds collected in August, one of the busiest travel periods of the year.”

The regional manager of the charity, Colin Symes, said “We can’t wait until the end of August to see how much has in fact been raised, but we hope the figure will be in the region of US$100 000.”

Proceeds for the charity from Virgin Atlantic are set to be donated to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.   This is currently the only type of hospital like this in the Caribbean region and will help to more than double the number of beds currently available to patients.

www.virgin-atlantic.com