Give A Mile helps fly people to see loved ones before it’s too late

A B.C. mother named Ashley, who has been separated from two of her children while she stays with a third in a Vancouver hospital, will get her Christmas wish to have them all be together thanks to a stranger and donated air miles.

On the website for Give A Mile, which helps bring together family and friends of people with serious and, often, terminal illnesses, Ashley wrote that she is currently in Vancouver with her four-year-old daughter, Addison, who is undergoing chemotherapy.

Her other two children, five-year-old daughter Mattaley and her two-year-old son Damian, are back in Kitimat more than 1,000 kilometres away in the northern part of the province. She asked for help to bring her two children to see her and their sister.

“Seeing my kids for Christmas would be a wish come true,” Ashley wrote.

When Maggie Rigaux read that story, she donated the 45,000 points necessary to make it happen.

“It broke my heart,” Rigaux said from Calgary, where she runs her talent acquisition and management company, Capabil-IT.

Rigaux said when her father-in-law was sick with mesothelioma — a lung cancer associated with asbestos — her husband often travelled across the country to Atlantic Canada to visit with him.

“I had a strong understanding of the impact of spending time with your loved ones before they pass,” she said. “The ability to take the stress away from people and give them the opportunity to meet up, maybe for the last time, I’m all in for that.”

Kevin Crowe of Calgary, who started Give A Mile, said he heard stories from his friend, Ryan Westerman who was dying of brain cancer and in a hospice. Daily he saw people get on the phone to say their final words to family and friends because the cost to fly to see their sick loved one was too high.

“I saw the incredible power of visits,” Crowe told Yahoo Canada News.

Westerman was in pain and knew he was going to leave behind a wife and a four-year-old son, but he made the most of visits he received at the hospice in the last year of his life.

“He showed me the value of time,” Crowe said.

After hearing thousands of air reward miles go unused every year, Crowe launched the Give A Mile initiative in 2013 — Canadians can donate their reward miles and those points go to providing flights for people so they can be with loved ones in their final days. Those round-trip flights usually involve flying to or from or within Canada, but the points can also be transferred to most U.S. airlines.

One story involves a 54-year-old woman from Red Deer, Alta., named Muriel with colorectal cancer, who had surgery in November to remove a tumour. She will now undergo five months of intense chemotherapy. She wanted to see her sister, who lives in New Brunswick, “because I need her and miss her and she cannot come to me, due to work and finances.” Donors made that wish happen.

When Cindy Shawgo in Denver wanted desperately to see her father in Springfield, Ill., Give A Mile helped her. She and her brother, Bobby, were able to see their father before he passed and she thanked the group recently on its Facebook page.

“Because of your support you made my dad the happiest man before he (passed) away. When we walked into his hospital room he was amazed. We had a great few days before he went and went in peace. You gave all of us happy memories,” she wrote.

Sometimes, contributors give more than is needed. Those extra miles go into a general funding pool for emergency flights, like one recently where a grandmother was flown out to see her baby grandchild who was in intensive care, Crowe said.

“There are a lot of stories and they stick with you,” Crowe said.

One story in particular that stands out in his mind was a woman who was ill, but was desperate to get back to the Philippines to see her family before she died. She was selling her furniture, her computer — anything she had. He delivered her ticket to her personally.

“She hugged me for two minutes and broke down in my arms. It was one of the most amazing hugs,” he recalled. She died three weeks after returning from her trip.

December marks the second anniversary for the charity, and so far, Give A Mile has provided 170 flights for people. The airlines, which don’t oversee the reward programs, have been supportive of the cause, Crowe said, and flexible when they can be.

The program is also run by volunteers, many of whom become “flight heroes” and promote particular campaigns through word-of-mouth and social media.

Crowe said he overwhelmed by the support by donors.

“It makes me believe in the goodness of humanity,” he said.

The program is unique in Canada because it extends beyond just immediate family. The Air Canada Foundation partners with Aeroplan to help send children and their parents to one of 15 pediatric hospitals in the country to receive treatment when they can’t be cared for in their own community.

While Make-A-Wish in the United States can take donations of air reward miles, the Canadian chapter does not — yet.

“It is something we are looking into,” spokeswoman Deborah Waines-Bauer said in an email.

Both the Air Miles and Aeroplan points programs also allow users to donate miles to hundreds of different charities.