Hope Takes Flight
Great Grant Minister's Award Recipient Hope Air Brings Medical Care To Those In Need

Coping with serious illness is a heavy burden. When needed care and treatment are hundreds of miles and thousands of dollars away, the road to recovery becomes that much harder.

Thanks to an innovative program developed by the Hope Air Transportation Network, hundreds of Ontario residents are receiving needed medical treatment and support.

“Imagine … a father who, after working all week, must spend a Friday night driving his five-year-old son nine hours to Toronto for treatments and then drive home,” explains Karen Adams, a Hope Air Board member. “For that family, every weekend is exhausting. The travel to medical facilities can be long and arduous and it adds an additional stress. Being able to mitigate at least the travel stress can have a major impact on the quality of people’s lives.”

The Volunteer Pilot Program (VPP) was developed by Hope Air, a national, charitable organization dedicated to arranging air transportation for people in financial need who require medical services that are not available in their home communities. Hope Air provides this vital service through the generous donation of flights on commercial, corporate, and private aircraft. Established in 1999, the VPP brings the use of private pilots/planes to supplement existing donated services and accommodate the needs of those living in remote communities.

The idea of helping people obtain better access to medical treatment isn’t something new. Hope Air began as the Mission Air Transportation Network in 1985, bringing donated seats on commercial flights to those in need. By 1999 the organization was arranging thousands of flights each year. At the time, adding the addition of a volunteer pilots program seemed a logical step in enhancing its services.

“The pilots loved the idea,” said Adams. “Pilots love to fly and they love to share flying, particularly when there is a vital need to get from one place to another. In the year 2000, our first full year of activity, we flew about a hundred flights. The six-month period just past, we had a 100% increase in volunteer flights over the previous period. So we’re now up to a point where approximately 5% of Hope Air’s total flights are in these light aircraft, small airplanes, and it’s growing.”

The Hope Air Transportation Network is supported through the efforts of approximately 170 pilots, 60 non-pilot volunteers who provide office support, and the time and support of various volunteer advisory committees and its Board of Directors. These efforts are supplemented by chartered airlines, national airlines including Air Canada and WestJet, Shell Aviation for fuel, and Proctor & Gamble for office space.

“The grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation was absolutely instrumental in getting our Volunteer Pilot Program underway. Dealing with volunteer pilots is like dealing with hundreds of independent airlines; there were extra systems and necessary programs to set up to make it all work,” Adams said. A total of 31 registered volunteer pilots were recruited and a volunteer pilot policy was developed, a steering committee was implemented to direct the program, and a full business plan was produced to support expansion throughout Canada.

For more information about the Hope Air Transportation Network, please visit the Hope Air web site at www.hopeair.org.