Delta Air Lines employees today
will present 1,200 handmade quilts to Salt Lake City’s Primary Children’s
Medical Center. Salt Lake City-based flight attendants will display these
beautiful bedcovers that will blanket the entire floor of the Delta
Center, home of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, along with more than 30 percent of
the seating area. In Salt Lake City, where the project began, flight attendants made work
areas a virtual quilt factory as they, along with customer service agents,
reservation representatives, pilots and Delta leadership gathered to work
on quilts or donate supplies to make them.

“What is extraordinary about this effort is the way it has brought so many
Delta people together for a common cause,” said Paulette Corbin, senior
vice president of In-Flight Service at Delta. “At a time when our airline
and our industry are facing so much difficulty, it is amazing to witness
the selflessness of our employees. We have a long tradition of caring and
giving, and we could not be more pleased and proud of our people’s
compassion and generosity.”

Corbin and other leaders from Delta headquarters in Atlanta will attend
the event to show their support for the more than 1,500 Delta family and
friends who donated time, talent or money for this cause. One flight attendant’s 86-year-old mother sent 75 quilts from her
Minnesota nursing home. Hundreds of flight attendants have worked
tirelessly in the lounge areas of their bases, stitching and sewing
between flights.

“This project was started five years ago by a group of flight attendants
who were passionate about helping the hospital and the children there,”
said Cindy Atkinson, a field service manager of Delta’s Salt Lake City
base. As coordinator of the quilt project and display for the past five
years, Atkinson said she has been “swept away by the outpouring of caring.”

The quilts will be presented to Sharon Goodrich, director of Primary
Children’s Hospital, during the Delta Center ceremony. Flight attendants
and other Delta employees will transport the fruits of their love and
labor to the hospital, where they will then be distributed to the children.

Primary Children’s Medical Center has a long-standing tradition of giving
quilts to children whose illnesses or injuries require extended hospital
stays. Delta’s contributions let the hospital give warmth to many more
young patients who need it. If the children grow attached to their quilts,
they take them home to put on their own beds.

“We really want to blanket them with care and love - that’s what this is
all about,” said Atkinson.
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