Ameri Cares - History

History

On April 4, 1975, a U.S. jet carrying 243 Vietnamese orphans crashed into the jungle outside of Tan Son Nhut. A third of the children died in the accident; the surviving children, many critically injured, awaited rescue. The United States government announced that it would not have rescue resources available for at least 10 days.

Robert Macauley, at one time a college roommate of George H. W. Bush, decided to respond on his own; he chartered a Boeing 747 to rescue the orphans, mortgaging his house to cover the costs. Within 48 hours, the children arrived safely in California. AmeriCares was created upon on this emergency. Robert Macauley explained his purpose to offer immediate and effective aid, "You act now and worry about the red tape later".

AmeriCares has provided emergency medical relief in response to numerous disasters, including the famine in Ethiopia (1984); the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (1986); the Armenian earthquake (1988); Central America’s Hurricane Mitch (1998); the Rwandan refugee crisis (1994); the attack on the World Trade Center (2001); the South Asian tsunami (2004); the Pakistan earthquake (2005); Hurricane Katrina (2005); the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur; the earthquake in China (2008), Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (2008), Sumatra Indonesia earthquake (2009) and typhoons in the Philippines (2009).