Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse Dedicates New Airlift Response Center, Boeing 757

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The Christian humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse plans to dedicate a new airlift response center and cargo aircraft in North Carolina.

Samaritan Purse, led by evangelist Samaritan’s Purse, held a dedication ceremony on Tuesday for its new 62,000-square-foot Airlift Response Center in Greensboro, North Carolina.

According to The Christian Post, the facility, which has a 55,000-square-foot hangar and office space, is located at the Piedmont Triad International Airport, roughly 100 miles from Samaritan's Purse's headquarters in Boone.

The organization also acquired a Boeing 757 that went into service on Tuesday.

Graham told The Christian Post that the Airlift Response Center is meant to "do the maintenance on our heavy duty aircraft," which he said is "vital to the work" the organization does.

He said the facility will inform Samaritan's Purse "to respond when there's a crisis anywhere in the world within short notice."

"We can have [a plane] loaded with a field hospital in 12 hours and be on our way," he said. "It allows us to continue to conduct business the way we like to conduct business, and that is quickly." 

The evangelist also noted that the facility had been in the works for over five years. 

"The quicker we respond, the better because life is at stake, and we want to be able to save life, so it's very important that we respond as quickly as we possibly can," he stressed. 

Graham said the new airlift center was finished last year after the Samaritan’s Purse spent "a year and a half designing it" and two years building it. 

"We were waiting for our second airplane to finish being refurbished" before the dedication took place because "we wanted to dedicate the planes and the facility all at the same time," he said.

The Boeing 757 and an existing Douglas DC-8 are the Samaritan Purse’s two largest cargo aircraft.

"Our second airplane, which is a 757, took us a year and a half to get it to where we could use it," Graham said. "It needed some refurbishing, it needed [Federal Aviation Administration] approval, and the FAA approval took quite a while." 

Earlier this month, the 757 completed its first mission after delivering 24 tons of cargo to Maui, Hawaii, due to a large wildfire. 

Photo Courtesy: ©Getty Image/Justin Sullivan/Staff

Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.