HERSHEY, Pa. — Helping others is in Jim George’s nature. As the director of community relations at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Penn State College of Medicine, he’s made it his career. In 2011, he became a licensed pilot. That same year, he started building his flight hours so that he could start to volunteer with Angel Flight East.
The nonprofit organization provides free air transportation to financially needy patients and their families by arranging flights to distant medical facilities.
“It’s a great excuse to fly,” George says of Angel Flight. “You get to do what you love and do something good for someone else at the same time.”
After George earned his private pilot’s license, a lifelong goal, he set a goal to achieve his instrument rating. He completed that in 2014 and then started volunteering for Angel Flight East. Since then, he’s completed several flights. His farthest flight to date was in 2013 when he transported a patient from Wheeling, West Virginia, to Philadelphia.
Learn more about George and his involvement with the Angel Flight program – and how he recruited an ally in his mission – in this Penn State Medicine article.