“It’s beyond humbling that they have that faith in me, that they’re willing to put significant amounts of money into hands that I trust,” Marcus told The Associated Press. More than 121,000 people had donated to the campaign after Marcus made an appeal to his 832,000 followers, making it one of the largest humanitarian fundraisers in GoFundMe’s history. On Wednesday, their mission “Operation Flyaway” helped ferry 51 people from Afghanistan to Uganda on a privately chartered plane financed by the GoFundMe campaign.
The goal, Ford noted, is to ferry Afghan citizens that have been targeted by the Taliban out of the country.A post shared by Quentin Quarantino is the alter ego of 25-year-old Tommy Marcus of New York City, previously best-known for his liberal memes and his jokes about opponents of COVID-19 vaccinations.Īlong with his followers, Quarantino raised USD 7 million within days on GoFundMe to launch rescue missions into Afghanistan to evacuate as many people as possible, many of whom said they had been threatened by the Taliban. Though the deadly suicide bombing at the airport on Thursday complicated their efforts, Ford says those they are helping must have passports, a relative his group can communicate with and someone vouching for them who has passed a background check. government has to be “comfortable with our organization saying these people are OK, and that they have actually done things to help their country, to help our country.” Raven Advisory CEO Sheffield Ford told the AP that in order to transport the people into the airport, the U.S. Without Operation Flyaway’s quick funding, that flight wouldn’t have gotten off the ground.” “Their last-minute funding, along with the generous support of the Rockefeller Foundation, Schmidt Futures and other donors, was critical. “They were one of many miracles we experienced in this time,” Shadian said. Sayara’s Shadian said he had met “Operation Flyaway” members on Zoom only earlier in the week and in the chaos of the Kabul evacuations was thrilled they agreed to fund the flight. military, said “an all-volunteer team consisting of former Special Forces soldiers and other veterans with expertise in Afghanistan” were working with the military to coordinate their rescue efforts. The company, which says it performs subcontract work for the U.S. Representatives from that North Carolina-based company, Raven Advisory, said they were able to pay for the mission using money raised through Marcus’ GoFundMe campaign. The flight from Kabul to Entebbe, Uganda, was organized by Sayara, which advised a company working with Marcus that it knew of a plane available for “Operation Flyaway.” The chartered flight that left Kabul early Wednesday morning is one of several private rescue efforts being organized by various groups, separately and through collaborations, to help Afghans flee. Ugandan officials said the nation would shelter up to 2,000 people who are expected to be relocated elsewhere after a temporary stay in the country. government, Uganda received the evacuees, who will stay at hotels in a city outside the country’s capital, Kampala. We are grateful we got out as many people as we did against the greatest odds we’ve ever faced.”Īt the request of the U.S. Simply put, the institutions failed, and it breaks my heart how much more we could have accomplished.
“I’m so proud of our extraordinary team and what we were able to accomplish in such a short time,” said Sayara CEO Scott Shadian. Officials from several nonprofit groups describe a chaotic and perilous scene at the Kabul airport as they rushed to fill private chartered flights with people who have the necessary paperwork in the limited time that they can keep their planes on the tarmac.
“However, we are unable to verify the authenticity or effectiveness of these efforts,” the statement said. A spokesperson for the State Department wrote in an emailed statement that the department appreciates “community-led efforts to support the Afghan relocation and resettlement process, which reflects the generosity of the American people and the international community.” Marcus’ group said more than 350 people have been rescued, with nearly 300 leaving Kabul on other chartered flights that “Operation Flyaway” reimbursed for providing safe passage from the country.
0 kommentar(er)
