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Today, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF announced  a two-year, $1.25 million commitment by The UPS Foundation; bringing the organization’s total support for UNICEF to $2 million for 2010 and 2011, including $400,000 of cash and in-kind support for Haiti earthquake relief efforts. 

These gifts will support UNICEF‘s emergency preparedness and rapid response as well as to expand existing projects aimed at building the capacity of UNICEF and national counterparts in logistic activities. The grant will also establish an urgent humanitarian response fund that will enable UNICEF to quickly mobilize resources anywhere in the world.

“There’s no better way to utilize UPS’s logistics leadership and expertise than to aid children during disasters,” said Dan Brutto, president of UPS International and a Board member of U.S. Fund for UNICEF.  “Our presence in 215 countries and territories combined with UNICEF’s expertise in providing aid enables food and supplies to be delivered to the world’s most vulnerable.”

This recent expansion of the partnership leverages UPS’s key strengths by enhancing UNICEF’s systems around rapid response and supply provision to aid the most vulnerable populations of children in emergencies.  Funding from UPS will support an emergency response simulation, field warehouse management and inventory training in several African countries, and streamline logistics capacity assessments.  

 ”UNICEF is proud to count UPS as one of our key partners in support of our mission to save the lives of children worldwide,” said U.S. Fund for UNICEF President and CEO Caryl Stern. “UPS has demonstrated time and again that it places a high priority on strengthening communities in ways that work, whether that is through the implementation of innovative programs, volunteerism, or community grants. This partnership is the perfect marriage of experience and resources that will allow us to fortify systems that help communities in crisis bounce back.”

In January 2010 in response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti, more than 100 UPS and UNICEF volunteers packed and transported individual child protection kits for 50,000 displaced children in Haiti. Additionally, UPS and UNICEF teamed up once again in July 2010 to transport relief supplies to refugees in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

For more than 10 years, UPS has partnered with the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, where UPS has provided grant funding to a range of UNICEF programs and more recently, in-kind shipping, freight and expertise. UPS has supported UNICEF’s work in emergency preparedness and relief efforts, girls’ education, child protection and UNICEF’s “School-in-a-Box Program.”