Colin Kaepernick Gets Airplane To Help The Needy In Somalia

NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been given a plane to help deliver food and water to the needy in Somalia, where there’s been a massive drought. The East African country is currently struggling to produce food for its people.

Colin Kaepernick Gets Plane To Help Drought In Somalia

Kaepernick announced the news last week proudly in a video, thanking the Turkish Airline.

“Amazing news,” Kaepernick said. “Turkish Airlines granted us an airplane to fly to Somalia, a 60 ton cargo plane, so we can fly there with food with water for these people. Now we’ve started a GoFundMe page to allow anyone to help us donate food, donate water.”

Within the next 48 hours, the football star helped raise over $1 million dollars, which will help provide direct aid to people of Somalia. The Somalians have been suffering from a historic drought, that has destroyed crops and livestock. The country is now on the edge of a famine that will impact over six million people, which makes up more than half of the country’s population.

“It was done out of love,” explained Kaepernick in the video. “We wanted to bring structure to this so now we’re going to use the name ‘Love Army for Somalia.’ So use the #LoveArmyForSomalia and this is amazing.”

Kaepernick made his initial plea on Wednesday, saying, “There’s an impending famine because of drought, politics, inaction of (non-government organizations) and lack of media attention.”

He added, “People are dying in Somalia right now that need our help.”

Turkish Airlines is the only major airline that flies to Somalia from the U.S.

The football star is now focused on the second part of his mission: getting the food, water and supplies to fill the plane. For this portion, Kaepernick has teamed up with Ben Stiller‘s Stiller Foundation to handle the funds raised.

The GoFundMe page is called Love Army for Somalia, and donations can be made here.