Representative Sharice Davids (KS03) toured the HHI Global Headquarters on Friday, May 3, 2019. HHI staff gave her an organizational history overview, including its beginnings in 1992 as an initial airlift to Moscow to provide medications for the empty shelves of the hospitals and orphanages – through its iteration as a nonprofit primarily focused on airlifts, delivering aid to many China, Vietnam, and many of the former Soviet republics – through its many disaster responses, including three simultaneous hurricanes in 2017 (Harvey, Irma and Maria) and the latest responses to Hurricanes Florence and Michael and to Cyclone Idai in Mozambique.
As Vice President of Operations Dan Neal explained how the millions of dollars of donated pharmaceuticals and medical supplies are processed and shipped out to clinics and organizations around the world through our warehouse, he emphasized HHI’s reliance on volunteers and the importance of those volunteers to the entire mission of HHI.
In the kit-building event space of PowrServ, Brian Sink described to Davids the necessity of hygiene kits in both disaster responses and after crises or humanitarian disasters. Sink explained that PowrServ, a program of Heart to Heart International, provides team-building events for corporations and other organizations and is able to give people meaningful and fun experiences while also helping those in need by providing those hygiene kits to Heart to Heart International.
The tour concluded with a look forward to the continuing programs of HHI and with an introduction by Jim Mitchum, EVP Strategic Development at HHI and CEO of RegaloRX, to the upcoming venture of RegaloRx, which will serve as a complement to HHI and provide jobs in the KC-area as well as medications to people in need throughout the U.S.
We are grateful to Representative Davids for taking time to learn more about our organization, and we look forward to working with all our elected government officials to continue to mission of improving healthcare to people in need.