Shipping giant FedEx recently donated their services to another giant — the 54-ton, 1.3-million square-foot AIDS Memorial Quilt.
In late June, the world’s largest living folk art began a journey from Atlanta to Washington D.C. for two major exhibitions, and FedEx donated a lead truck to carry the first set of quilt panels 610 miles to the National Mall. FedEx Custom Critical also provided a deep discount for the rest of the shipping from Atlanta to Washington D.C.
Here’s a few fun facts about how much work went into hauling the massive quilt, which represents more than 94,000 lives lost to AIDS since the epidemic began:
* It took more than nine months to retrieve all the quilt panels on loan to community groups across the country.
* It took 17,000 hours of staff and volunteer time to identify 48,000 blocks of panels for display, packing those blocks, and loading the trucks.
* It took more than 200 crates to hold all the quilt panels and five trucks to ship each way.
