HUMAN TRAFFICKING ACTIVIST &

FOUNDER OF AIRLINE AMBASSADORS INT’L TO RELEASE MEMOIR

Arlington, VA, December 12, 2018 – Nancy Rivard, founder of Airline Ambassadors International and recipient of the 2018 United Nations Human Rights Award will release her memoir, “Wings of Love,” in 2019. The funds for the project, which aims at inspiring people to bring love into action at a global scale, will be raised through a crowdfunding campaign.

In “Wings of Love,” Rivard shares the story of her journey to her life purpose, which led her to start Airline Ambassadors International. AAI is the most successful non-profit in the airline industry, saves millions of lives, and began the fight to stop human trafficking in 2010. It also led Rivard to marry the man of her dreams!

The main themes — fulfilling one’s destiny by being of service, and finding true love, echo two of the most burning desires of men and women all over the world.

“People don’t really learn from facts and figures,” Rivard explains. “The best way we can shift their perspective — to something larger than themselves — is to give them a personal experience or a story through which they can live vicariously. I am writing “Wings of Love” because I want to inspire people with a story that will move their soul. Hopefully, the Wings of Love book will inspire readers to ask themselves the essential question: ‘How can I serve?”

In “Wings of Love,” Rivard opens up her heart and reveals the good and the bad, the happy moments and the heartbreaking challenges, the unexpected traps, and the powerful lessons. The memoir makes a case for kindness, compassion, and generosity as inherent features of the human soul as opposed to the world being portrayed as a place of hatred and separation. Rivard’s memoir leads the readers on a journey across continents, from hip California to refugee camps in Kosovo, to poverty-stricken El Salvador. Readers will meet extraordinary people–unknown heroes, spiritual teachers, and former heads-of-state such as Mikhail Gorbachev, Grandfather David, Spiritual Elder of the Hopi’s, famous Clown Doctor, Patch Adams, visionary biologist, Elisabet Sathouris, Congressman Tom Lantos, the Dalai Lama, Bishop Tutu and Deepak Chopra.

“I believe that earth is actually a schoolroom for us to continually reap the effects of our actions until we realize that it’s a never ending cycle,” says Rivard. “Frankly, it gets boring to live only for ourselves. After enough experience we realize that it is only through caring, sharing, and bringing love into action that we feel fulfilled. As each of us finds our unique way to serve, our unique talent to share, we can change the world for the better,” she adds.

Since 1996, when she founded Airline Ambassadors International to make a positive change in the world, Rivard has helped millions of orphans and vulnerable children and human trafficking victims. Now, she relies on the help of others to bring her new project to life. “Wings of Love” is more than a book, or the story of someone’s life. It is a tool for us to build a global tide of good will,” she says.

The proceeds from the crowdfunding campaign will be used to cover the costs of the technical aspects of publishing ‘Wings of Love,” as well as the marketing campaign that will include a book launch tour in the US.

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About Nancy Rivard: Nancy founded Airline Ambassadors International (AAI) to provide for orphans and vulnerable children in 1996 while working as a flight attendant for American Airlines. Nancy has a Masters degree from Southern Methodist University and is married to contractor and environmentalist, Dave Rivard. She runs the Airline Ambassadors office from Arlington VA and retired in 2013 as an international flight attendant to run Airline Ambassadors full time. She has been honored with an impressive number of awards: Woman of Peace Award (1999), Ambassador of Peace Award(2000), President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement (2006), Ambassador of Peace Award (The London Travel Market, 2013), Human Rights Hero Award (Foundation for a Slavery Free World, 2015), Human Rights Award (United Nations Association, 2017).

About the book: “Wings of Love” is being co-written by journalist and author A.G. Billig. The book came about through the work of AAI’s original Director of Protocol, Maria Harrison. Its sponsor is life coach and philanthropist Ronda Coallier, and the project is being produced by Professor Frank Chindamo.

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For further information please contact:
A.G. Billig
E-mail: contact@agbillig.com
Cell: 323-443-2445

About Airline Ambassadors International: Founded in 1996 by Nancy Rivard, AAI is the only non-profit leveraging connections with the airline industry to facilitate humanitarian efforts, and is recognized by the US Congress and the United Nations. Airline Ambassadors has hand-delivered over $60 million of aid to children in 62 countries in orphanages, clinics and remote communities, impacting over 500,000 children. Volunteers have escorted 3,000 children for life changing medical care. Since correctly identifying human trafficking on four flights in 2009, AAI developed the first “industry specific” training on human trafficking awareness that has been provided at 90 airports and other locations.

Airline Ambassadors International
550 14th Road South #1014
Arlington, VA 22202
Press contact:
A.G. Billig
E-mail: contact@agbillig.com
Cell: 323-443-2445

This release was published on openPR.   See this LINK

An empty seat by the aisle.

The confused look in the light-blue eyes of a young woman.

Imaginary clothes drawn with a red marking pen on the frail body of a three-year-old.

The slight shiver of the teenage girl in the boarding line at the gate.

Cupped hands upraised to the sky.

A bruise on a cheek.

They all tell a story.

A tale of anguish and pain, endurance & hope and every one of us can play a part.

All these stories are a cry for help, coming from people experiencing intolerable levels of hardship all over the world. Some of them are victims of starvation, war, and natural disasters. Others, of sex trafficking. We can lend them a helping hand unconditionally. We can help at least one of the millions of children who are hungry, cold, and have no access to clean water or education. We can learn about the indicators of human trafficking, recognize, and report them. We can match our unique interests and skills to human need. We can make a difference when we travel.

That’s what Nancy Rivard has been doing since 1986 when she founded the Airline Ambassadors. After her father suddenly passed away on Christmas Eve, she found out at only twenty-nine, that loving one another and being of service is what ultimately makes life worth living. It became the young flight attendant’s life purpose — and made her unstoppable.

Her contagious enthusiasm, courage, and dedication to making a positive impact in the world eventually won over other flight attendants, airport employees, some of the big players in the airline industry, the U.N., and people like you. For them, Nancy Rivard is more than the founder of a successful non-profit organization dedicated to providing assistance to children worldwide and putting a stop to human trafficking. She is a trailblazer for the extraordinary impact ordinary people can make in the world by talking less, doing more and bringing love into action.

“Wings of Love” is the next chapter to be written in the Airline Ambassadors history. This memoir based on Nancy Rivard’s odyssey of self-discovery is meant to inspire and empower people from around the world.  Men and women, young and older people alike can take a step forward towards their soul, find their life purpose and fulfill it — by being of service. Nancy opens up her heart and reveals the good and bad, the happy moments and heartbreaking challenges, the unexpected traps, and powerful lessons. At a time where the mass media portrays the world as a place of hatred and separation, “Wings of Love” makes a case for kindness, compassion, and generosity as inherent features of the human soul.  How? By our inter-connectedness and power to change the world through caring for one another.

Yet, “Wings of Love” is more than just a life-changing book that will inspire you to embark on a profound search for meaning and ask yourself the essential question, “How can I serve?” The book’s earnings will give wings to more humanitarian missions and help the organization reach new territories with airline industry-specific training programs on human trafficking awareness.

For all this to happen, for us to release the book in 2018 and make a bigger and better positive impact in the world, we need your support. We need to raise funds to make “Wings of Love” an outstanding, high-quality book available in digital, print and audio formats, translate it in several languages and implement a global promotion campaign so that we build a tidal wave of goodwill on this planet.

Any contribution, even the smallest one, can help. We can do this together. Thank you for joining us in bringing love into action and “Wings of Love” on the bookshelves.  THANK YOU!

This campaign was generously funded by Ronda Coallier

Donate today and be a part of the collective voice determined to end human trafficking and bring safety to children around the world. 

Wings of Love  Book Description

What is the path to happiness, true love, and fulfillment? For Nancy Rivard, the founder of the internationally acclaimed non-profit organization Airline Ambassadors and the 2017 recipient of Perdita Huston Human Rights Award, it was finding her life purpose. Falling in love with humanity and being of extraordinary service. The twenty-nine-year-old California native had already given up a soaring corporate career as VP of American Airlines to become a flight attendant and travel around the globe when a heart-wrenching event started her on a seven-year search for spiritual meaning.

Nancy had miraculous meetings with the great spiritual teachers Sathya Sai Baba and Babaji Francesco Atmananda as well as magical experiences such as a UFO encounter and her first visit to Medjugorje. She’d worked with some of the world’s brightest minds. These experiences eventually revealed the answer to her burning question. She found out that women were not victims, but powerful beings with a sacred mission to restore peace and harmony on our planet. She realized that her life purpose was to meet real need and bring love into action.

Armed with faith, passion, and courage, against all the odds and all alone, she endeavored to make a difference and influence the travel industry, the largest one in the world and help millions of people around the world. It was by following her heart and staying faithful to her calling that Nancy also found true love and her soul partner.

In this riveting memoir, Nancy Rivard takes you on a fantastic love adventure that spans several decades and continents, from the war-engulfed Bosnia of the 90s to the earthquake-devastated Haiti of the year 2010, passing through hurricane-stricken New Orleans and impoverished El Salvador. She portrays loneliness, sacrifice, betrayal, temptation, danger, and loss as opportunities that made her grow as a human being — from an idealistic (but lost) young woman into the global role model she is today. Nancy also shares one of the most beautiful love stories of the modern times, how it blossomed when she least expected it, and how it endured the test of time, hardships, and separation.

Nancy Rivard’s journey is your journey. It represents the essential cycle each of us must go through as we move towards self-actualization, expressing our authentic self, and remembering we are love. It will inspire you to follow the promptings of your heart, and ultimately ask yourself the essential question –

“How can I serve?”

Below is a podcast interview with Nancy Rivard on the Wings of Love story

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The story of Airline Ambassadors is highlighted on the Meg Robinson Show with the great musical background on this podcast.  Meg has a way of bringing out the best in people.

Listen to podcast below or connect with her website at

 https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/angel-in-flight/id1298744954?i=1000422253691&mt=2

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The story will also be chronicled in the upcoming book – Wings of Love 

by donating HERE to Airline Ambassadors

Flying High: Airline Ambassadors Help Bring Critically Ill Children to U.S.

When Soad Hamdan first met Osvaldo at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala, he was a shy, introverted 9-year-old boy.

He wore his hat low on his head, hiding his widespread eyes and other cranial deformities caused by a birth defect known as a nasal encephaloceles.  He barely talked. He didn’t make eye contact. He didn’t have any friends.

Hamdan felt an immediate connection. “I was really attached to him,” she says.

As a medical escort for Airline Ambassadors, a nonprofit organization that leverages connections in the airline industry for humanitarian aid, Hamdan accompanies critically ill children like Osvaldo as they travel to the United States for medical treatments. Since many families cannot afford to fly with their children, Airline Ambassador escorts travel with the kids and make sure they meet up with their host families.

Hamdan, who lives in Rogers Park, has been a flight attendant with American Airlines for 17 years and began volunteering for Airline Ambassadors in 2009. When she talks about Osvaldo and the other children with whom she has traveled, her eyes well with tears.

“These kids are the best kids ever,” she says. Many are scared of the attention they get from fellow passengers, or are anxious about traveling to a new country, so they often become attached to their escort. “You get emotionally involved, and so do the kids,” she says.

Airline Ambassadors was founded in 1996 when American Airlines flight attendant Nancy Rivardsaw an opportunity for flight attendants to travel with boxes of supplies for needy children. Since then, the nonprofit has also created the medical escort program, as well as an initiative to help train flight attendants to recognize and prevent human trafficking.

“You get so much more back than you’re giving,” says Julie Riley of Winnetka, who has been a medical escort for Airline Ambassadors since 2003. “These children, with their deformities and awful setbacks… you still see a wonderful spirit in them. It’s been a really great experience.”

Riley has a light blue folder at least an inch thick, bursting with photos, ticket stubs and drawings from kids with whom she has traveled. An American Airlines flight attendant since 1985, Riley became involved with the program after finding out about it in a company newsletter.

“This was a perfect fit for me,” Riley says. “I know the industry, travel abroad, understand the airports, [and] love kids. I saw it as an opportunity to do something, to give back.”Beyond using their travel perks to help kids in need, flight attendants are also well equipped to deal with the unpredictability of air travel. With the help of Margaret Whitehead, the director of the children’s medical escort program for Airline Ambassadors, volunteers figure out how to deal with missed connecting flights, miscommunications with host families, and handling children who might be scared or anxious about leaving home for the first time.

After one particularly rough trip full of weather delays, Riley even brought a young girl to her home with her after they missed their flight from Chicago to Grand Rapids, Mich.

“It was, on multiple levels, the best experience for myself and my family,” Riley says about the night the young girl, Maya, stayed in her home. Riley’s daughter, Jenna, was so moved by the experience that she sent Maya home with two extra suitcases of her old clothes and talked about the visit during her church confirmation.

When you help one person, then they help someone else, says Riley. “It’s one beautiful, touching thing.”

It’s a spark that sets off another spark, and it’s not uncommon for volunteers to experience the generosity of others during their trips. Hamdan has received help from fellow passengers who can navigate the language barriers between her and the children, and one traveler even gave Riley $20 to give to a child who was traveling home after surgery. Additionally, fellow airline personnel, including pilots and flight attendants, take great steps to ensure a child has a positive travel experience.

Most flight attendants who participate in the program work for American Airlines, but there are a few attendants from Delta and United Airlines. The program relies heavily on American Airlines because the company ensures the flight attendants receive positive space—or confirmed seats—on the flight. Additionally, the kids can get tickets through the company’s Miles for Kids in Need program, which allows donated miles to be used for children seeking medical treatment. According to Whitehead, there are roughly 150 to 175 active American Airline volunteers.

Hamdan often tries to recruit fellow flight attendants to join the program. She was introduced to it through a friend who was actively involved and has been impressed with the organization and its directors.

 “I have a lot of respect for [Whitehead] and for Airline Ambassadors in general,” she says. “We’re the people who bring the kids, but they organize it. It’s an amazing program.”

When Hamdan and Osvaldo reunited at the Richmond International Airport in Virginia after he spent months getting corrective surgeries, he was a different person. The silent, introverted little boy who refused to make eye contact ran into her arms when he saw her at the airport. “He wasn’t the shy boy I knew,” Hamdan says. “He wouldn’t stop talking. He was happy and smiling.”

“You see that smile?” she asks, pulling up a photo on her iPhone. “He was a different person. He felt good about himself.”

Find out how to donate your miles to Miles for Kids in Need