August 1, 2018 – “Monday was a beautiful sunny day in ORD. The Polish orphans were going back home after 6 weeks with host families in the US. We were so hopeful things would go much more smoothly on their return trips than when they arrived in June in the middle of ORD thunderstorms and severely impacted all their connecting flights. Everything was on time  but then suddenly the SEA/ORD flight was over 3 hours late. Kathy Garza was waiting in SEA to accompany that child to ORD. The girl could still make her connection but had one large checked bag which probably would not have made the connection since it could only be checked to ORD. But Kathy, being an ORD agent, knew exactly what to do She spoke with the ticket counter and convinced them to check the bag all the way to MUC , so all was well with this one.

But then the airplane that would bring the OMA girl back to ORD had a problem with the A/C door upon arrival in OMA and this trip canceled with no other good way to get the girl to ORD in time for the LH flight. Now we had a real problem. Our escort, retired flight attendant Dorothy Olson and this girl had to wait for the next flight to ORD which was scheduled to arrive 10 minutes before LH was scheduled to leave for MUC. The agency asked if LH would hold for this one girl. I told them no and to go ahead and try to get her rebooked for the LH flight the next day along with a native chaperone who would have to remain behind to accompany her. None of the orphans are allowed to travel alone regardless of their age. It would cost this agency $800. To change both LH tickets so nothing was done yet. Meanwhile, Soad Hamdan, ORD flight attendant who always does a terrific job coordinating the orphans’ travel for us at ORD took matters into her own hands. She was waiting at the OMA arrival gate and the flight was estimating about 15 minutes early. It arrived, Soad grabbed the girl and they ran nonstop all the way from the AE gate over to LH where the gate agents were watching for her. They weren’t holding but thanks to Kathy Garza, who had spoken with them and explained the situation, they were definitely aware, the door was still open and by some miracle she made it!

This extra effort actually saved BLOOM Agency the $800. change fee on the two tickets and shows what can be accomplished by caring enough to go that extra mile to fix an almost impossible dilemma. I am truly grateful I work with such caring volunteers. Soad and Kathy, we are all thankful and honored to have both of you on our team. You’ve proven that huge problems can be resolved by just a little extra effort.”