Project Suitcase
The way people who have means
can deliver to people who have needs.
PROJECT SUITCASE is a very special initiative that is about two very simple things: a suitcase and a conscience. Fill one with something like medical supplies, shoes, books, a computer, whatever someone needs and you have excess baggage that really makes a difference. Make that suitcase your second checked bag (you really only need one) and personally transport it to somewhere across the world and you have completely redefined baggage claim. We have seen it for ourselves; in the smiles, the tears and the hugs. Lots of them! And they’re contagious.
The initial response we received with our first PROJECT SUITCASE was contagious enough that it developed into the philanthropic wing of the International Exploration Society. In 2007, we filled a suitcase with art supplies for an innovative school in South Africa. They were ecstatic. And so were we because it made us realize that there are a lot of empty suitcases hanging around in attics.
We came home and created a mantra. Fill the suitcase, and go the extra mile. And what is extra exciting is that this is very much like the sky itself; there really is no limit.
To give you an example, our upcoming trip to Kenya will involve transporting computers. In conjunction with one of our Partners, the United Nations, the recipients will be individual schools, which you can have the opportunity of personally visiting and giving the computers! Once at the school, at our Extra Mile ceremony, you can personally donate your suitcase.
This is not rocket science. Often it is the more simple altruistic human gestures that prove to be the most impacting. In a way, PROJECT SUITCASE has become for us a kind of an expedition, a journey that never ceases to remind those who participate what the humanitarian spirit is really about. Through the Project, we are always looking ahead. We are already asking ourselves where will those kids with the computers be next year? If they are anything like us, they will be wanting the upgraded technology.
Hopefully, you are already thinking what you want to put in that suitcase.