AmeriCares Honors MasterCard International, Sprung Instant Structures

AmeriCares Foundation
Wednesday, 17 April 2002

MasterCard International and Sprung Instant Structures are to be honored by AmeriCares at a May 21 benefit at New York's historic Regent Wall Street Hotel. The event marks the 20th anniversary of the humanitarian aid and disaster relief organization.

The hosts for the evening are former President George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara, ambassador-at-large for AmeriCares, and Robert C. Macauley and his wife Leila, the founders of the organization. The A&E TV Network's "Biography" host, Harry Smith, is returning for his third year as emcee for the gala.

MasterCard International, to be represented at the Celebration of Hope Gala by its president and CEO, Robert W. Selander, has been a corporate contributor to AmeriCares for the past six years, aiding people in crisis from China and India to El Salvador and the U.S. In addition, MasterCard International has raised more than $50,000 for Camp AmeriKids through golf tournaments and direct contributions, and Master Card International employees have volunteered for the AmeriCares HomeFront program, helping the indigent elderly to make necessary home repairs.

Sprung Instant Structures is to be represented by its Chairman, Philip Sprung, Sr., a member of the family that started the business in 1887 to manufacture chuck wagon covers and teepees for the early settlers on the

Western prairies. The company, an AmeriCares partner since 1991, has evolved into an international enterprise, developing relocatable structures erected quickly and economically, utilizing architectural membrane panels tensioned between a series of aluminum "I" beams. Generously donated to AmeriCares, these structures have been used as field hospitals in Rwanda and Iran, warehouses and relief centers in Japan following the 1995 earthquake, emergency replacements for church buildings in the U.S. that were destroyed by fire, feeding stations following a typhoon in Madagascar, and most recently, as safe havens and warehousing for the relief workers at the Staten Island Landfill and ground zero following the events of September 11.

Since it was established in 1982 as a private agency without regard for race, creed or political orientation, AmeriCares has delivered nearly $2.6 billion in medical aid, food and clothing to refugees and impoverished people in 137 countries around the globe.

For 20 years, AmeriCares has maintained an administrative overhead of less than two percent, the lowest in the nonprofit sector. AmeriCares is primarily supported by private contributors of funds and services as exemplified by MasterCard International and Sprung Instant Structures who are being recognized for their strong commitment to the AmeriCares mission.

For more information, or to contact AmeriCares Foundation, see their website at: www.americares.org