Hopeforce Announced Grand Prize Winner
January 1, 2012
American Airlines and SCORE Name Grand Prize Winner of "Flights. Camera. Action" Contest
American Airlines and its small business mentoring partner, SCORE, announced the Grand Prize winner of its "Flights.Camera.Action" contest Sept. 15 at the 2011 SCORE Awards Gala in Washington, D.C. Hope Force International, from Brentwood, Tenn., was awarded more than 100,000 Business ExtrAA points -- enough for 50 domestic round-trip tickets. The winner will be featured on American Airlines inflight television for the month of March, receive a full-page ad in one issue of American Way magazine, banners on AA.com, and more.
"The air travel and the media exposure we have received from the contest has been amazing and has opened doors for growth of our business," said Jack Minton, president and chief executive officer of Hope Force International. "We've already received positive interest and heightened awareness as a result of the media exposure to date, and the flight awards will assist us in reaching out to more people in need."
Hope Force International is a not-for-profit that mobilizes thousands of volunteers into areas of crisis around the world. They were chosen through a public vote for 50 semi-finalists from hundreds of videos entered, which represented a cross section of industries and geographic regions from around the United States. The organization specializes in disaster response and preparedness. HFI is built on the premise of providing rapid response teams to disaster areas within 48 hours of an incident.
Watch HFI on the American Airlines website.
A panel of esteemed judges, including Leigh Buchanan, INC. editor-at-large; Kelley Cox, U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive director of business development; Rieva Lesonsky, GrowBizMedia founder and chief executive officer; Virasb Vahidi, American's Chief Commercial Officer; and Ken Yancey, SCORE chief executive officer -- selected Hope Force International for articulating the most compelling case for how travel and media exposure to American's customers could affect substantial growth for their company.
Note: Mr. Minton is pictured here with VP of Sales for American Airlines, Derek Decross
