Blue Cross Relief Foundation
By Gretchen Stalnaker, Brianna Phelps, and Regan Strength
Typhoon Haiyan Images and Videos
Our Founders
Regan
The pilot and the medical officer for the Blue Cross Relief Foundation. She flies the plane and helps heal the citizens back to health. With singing, volunteering, babysitting as some of her hobbies, she loves giving back to her community, she hopes to fulfill this in going to Tacloban to help everyone in need. After the effect of the Typhoon.
Brianna
Brianna is the Load Master and part time medical officer for the Blue Cross Relief Foundation. She enjoys swimming, singing, and volunteering. She is responsible for determining what and how much of each supply is taken to Tacloban in order to help restore safety to the citizens. She is excited to be apart of these people's recovery, and hopes to impact as many lives as possible.
Gretchen
The navigator and part time medical officer for the Blue Cross Relief Foundation. She designated which airports to go to, and which ones were reachable with the limited amount of miles. With singing, sewing, and reading as her hobbies, she dreams to give back to the community through unconventional ways. She wishes to touch hearts through song, home goods, and to tell stories to people in need of a laugh. Though shy at some points in time, she can be a really talkative person when you need her to be.
Group Objectives
Our other objectives were to provide mosquito repellent for all citizens, bring antibiotics to nurse the citizens back to health, and provide vaccinations for all citizens. This helps defend against the most common diseases in the Philippines.
Accomplishments
We delivered a total of 36 supplies, our total mass was 30650 pounds. That was the highest mass against every other organization!
Our Foundation had a total volume of 2,088 cubic feet.
It took us a total of 32 hours, 30 min. to arrive to our destination. We went to Romualdez Airport that is located in the Philippines, starting in Houston, Texas. From Houston, we went in a series of flights to Safford Regional Airport, Shelter Cove Airport, Juneau International, Unalaska Airport, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Airport, Okadama Airport, to Yakushima Airport, to Laoag International Airport, to our final destination of Romualdez Airport.
We reached the objectives listed above by supplying eight containers of drinking water with a volume of 72 cubed feet each, two mosquito containers, seven medical supply boxes, and three portable hospitals, all for the people of Tacloban, Philippines.
Pallet One
Pallet Two
Pallet Three
Pallet Four
Pallet Five
The mass of pallet 5 is 6,350 lbs. The volume is 960 cubic feet.
Flight Plan
How our supplies helped us reach our goal
Reflections
Chronological Timeline:
In the beginning we were given the news of Typhoon Haiyan, and the tragedies that were occurring to the people of Tacloban. We learned the common information about the Philippines, such as the government, history, food, and language of the country. We learned of every major contagious disease that affected the people of Tacloban, such as Malaria, Tetanus, Measles, and Typhoid fever. We made the pallets with certain equipment that we would send over to Tacloban each in proportion to the size of the plane. We then navigated our way from Houston, Texas to Tacloban, Philippines with the help of Google Earth, after intense training. We calculated our hours, and created our final briefing.Misconceptions:
We did not know that diseases would be more contagious with the typhoon, but it seemed to be a big problem in the Philippines. We also did not know that they would be so low on food supplies, and clean water.
Strategies:
We divided the work load evenly, but we should have collaborated more. We also should have checked the requirements for our disease briefing more than we did.
Tips and Lessons Learned:
We learned to not only double check, but triple check every rubric and requirements.
Reflection Statement:
Our purpose was to send supplies to the Philippines the quickest we could to help the community. We strive to make a difference and make the world a better place. Throughout this process we gave food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, gave homes to the homeless, but most importantly gave hope to the hopeless. We reached our goals for this mission, and hope to reach many more in the near future.