Release #: Vol. 84, No. 5
June 01, 2015

Give Me 5 for Supporting P4P

Your pocket change could help ALPA members in need

By F/O Mark Segaloff (United), P4P President

“Pilots Helping Pilots” is a long-standing ALPA slogan, and one of the many ways our members help each other is through the ALPA Emergency Relief Fund or Pilots for Pilots (P4P). Established in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, P4P has aided hundreds of ALPA members and their families by offering financial grants to cover the immediate, extraordinary expenses that follow widespread, catastrophic events.

P4P is only made possible through your donations. Because of your generous contributions and the support we’ve been able to collectively provide, I’d like to say thanks and extend a big high five!

However, our work is not finished. ALPA members and their families continue to be affected by floods, earthquakes, wildfires, and other widespread disasters. Our fellow pilots continue to need our support to help cover essential costs in the aftermath of these tragic events. For this reason, and to ensure that the fund remains solvent, my fellow P4P directors and I are proud to announce the P4P Give Me Five campaign.

From June 1 through August 31, we’re asking each ALPA member to donate at least $5 to P4P. For essentially the price of a large specialty-shop coffee, you can help increase P4P’s account balance. If each member participates, we’ll raise more than $250,000.

It’s easy to contribute. Visit alpa.org/givemefive and enter your credit card information. Or you can write a check payable to the ALPA Emergency Relief Fund and mail it to the ALPA Cashiering Department, 535 Herndon Parkway, Herndon, VA 20172.

In the coming weeks, you’ll see reminders about the Give Me Five campaign in ALPA’s FastReads and on the Association’s social networking sites. We’ll provide status updates to let you know the kind of support we’re receiving and how much we’ve raised.

The P4P Board of Directors, which includes F/Os Christine Gromek (United) and Barry Nomann (Spirit), works behind the scenes to help ALPA families get through what can be truly difficult and personally draining experiences.

Just ask Capt. Todd Hirshon (Spirit) who lives north of the Boston, Mass., area, which was hit with more than 108 inches of snow this past winter. During one of the crippling blizzards that battered the region, significant amounts of ice began to accumulate on his roof. “Heating the house caused the ice to melt and enter the house via the walls and ceiling,” he said, resulting in “water damage from the attic all the way down to the basement in excess of $50,000.”

While Hirshon was weighing whether he should approach his insurance company at that time or wait until the winter storm season passed, he also had more immediate needs to resolve. “The P4P grant allowed me to buy replacement food and clean-up items,” he noted.

The Spirit captain hasn’t been alone. Dozens of ALPA pilots turned to P4P in the fall of 2012 after Hurricane Sandy demolished much of the New Jersey coast. Several of the pilots I spoke with indicated that their homes were completely destroyed. One member had a live-in father who required specialized medical equipment. The P4P grant helped cover the cost of a generator to power the equipment until electricity could be restored to the area.

Because Pilots for Pilots is a resource that our members turn to specifically during catastrophic events, it’s easy to overlook this important member service. Yet P4P has issued hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to ALPA pilots and their families. If each ALPA member would donate $5 to our campaign, the P4P account balance would be in a much better position to weather future crises.

So think about forgoing that cup of coffee today. Instead, reach into your pocket and Give Me Five. You’ll be helping others, and down the road you could wind up helping yourself. Hundreds of ALPA members who’ve already benefited from this invaluable ALPA asset can tell you that not having P4P available when catastrophe strikes would be the real tragedy.

Learn More

For more information about Pilots for Pilots, to make a donation, or to see if you qualify for a grant, visit alpa.org/givemefive. While you’re there, check out the animated promotional video.

This article is from the June-July 2015 issue of Air Line Pilot magazine, the Official Journal of the Air Line Pilots Association, International—a monthly publication for all ALPA members.

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