BRAMPTON, Ont. — DHL Express is celebrating its first year as the official logistics partner of charities Free The Children and Me to We. By providing the charities with free shipping, storage and logistics support, DHL has allowed them to allocate 90% of donations and funds to aid programming overseas, according to the company.

“For global charities like Free The Children and Me to We, logistics is a costly necessity, one where we as a company saw the opportunity to make an enormous difference in offering our services,” says Greg Hewitt, president of DHL Express Canada. “Social responsibility today is about more than just writing a cheque; it is about using our expertise and reach as the world’s largest logistics provider to help women, children and families aim for and achieve a better life.”

Over the past year, DHL has worked with Free The Children to ship boxes full of toys, pencils, pens, crayons and notebooks to Kenya, Ecuador, Haiti, Nicaragua and India, with Canadian students who fundraise for “Adopt a Village” countries donating many of the supplies.

DHL also shipped nearly 3,000 solar lamps to India, Kenya and Haiti, providing much-needed light in homes where children had been studying in the dark with the aid of a candle.

Free the Children also called on DHL to ship boxes full of health kits and medical supplies, which were sent to health clubs at local schools to educate kids on personal hygiene.

“DHL’s support has enabled Free The Children to connect Canadian students, concerned families and even media professionals with ‘Adopt a Village’ countries,” said Roxanne Joyal, co-CEO of Me to We. “We are so grateful for their assistance. This partnership is remarkable, because we are linking children and their families from different parts of the world and financial circumstances to each other, and are underscoring the importance of education, understanding and philanthropic spirit – values that make this world a better place.”

DHL Express also supports the Me to We Artisans program, which has helped more than 500 Maasai Mamas in Kenya sell their traditional beadwork in Canada. DHL Express ships 150 kilograms of Me to We products free of charge from Nairobi to Toronto biweekly. DHL Express shipped more than 50,000 artisan pieces, saving the charitable initiative more than $84,000, which, in turn, is invested back into the Maasai communities for food, medicine, clothing and school fees.

In 2012, DHL employees logged 1,176 volunteer hours with Free The Children. Volunteer efforts included preparations for We Day, Free The Children’s signature national youth empowerment event, and other initiatives, including We Scare Hunger, which saw employees collect and donate 1,160 lbs of food to local food banks, and donations that provided 400,000 litres of clean drinking water to “Adopt a Village” communities.