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Rotary Club of Waynesville PO Box 812 Waynesville, NC 28786 www.waynesvillerotary.org
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WAYNESVILLE ROTARY SUPPORTS THE ROTARY DISTRICT 7670 HONORAIR FLIGHTS! Waynesville Rotary is pleased to work as part and parcel of the Rotary District 7670 HonorAir flights to be held in the spring of 2009. HonorAir and HonorFlight Network strive to get every interested World War II Veteran to Washington, DC to see the WWII Memorial built in their honor. Eight Haywood County WWII Veterans participated in the November 1, 2008 flight and brough make remarkable and emotional experiences. Links below will take you to some images from that trip. Additionally, a link below will bring the interested reader to a form for nominating a WWII Veteran or for indicating a company's or a person's interest in sponsoring a Veteran on the trip. Waynesville Rotary has a goal of sponsoring 15 WWII Vets in the coming flights for the fall of 2009. Future flight details and community fund raising efforts will be noted on this page so please check back often! Project Update as of 09/19/2009: Pre-flight orientation was held for the Veterans and Guardians assigned to the October 3rd flight to Washington, DC. The orientation was again held in the Ferguson Auditorium at AB-Technical College in Asheville. 15 WWII Veterans will be sponsored by the Waynesville Rotary club, 12 WWII Veterans are sponsored by Haywood Rotary Club, and 3 WWII Veterans will be sponsored by the Sunrise Rotary Club bringing a total of 30 additional WWII Veterans to make the trip from Haywood. Family members and other interested parties wishing to welcome back the Veterans to Asheville should plan to be at the Asheville Airport no later than 7:00 p.m. on October 3rd. A final fall flight will be held on October 31st. This flight is also full at this time. An additional flight depending upon demand will occur in the spring of 2010. Project Update of 06/04/2009: INCREDIBLE trip completed! 45 Haywood County Veterans sponsored by Waynesville and Haywood Rotary Clubs made the flight to Washington, DC to see THEIR Memorial on Saturday, May 30th. This outstanding trip was well covered in images and newspaper articles. For links to various images, click below: From Bill Bird: Click HERE! From Cecil Yount: Click HERE! Project Update as of 05/15/2009: Transportation for the May 30th HonorAir flight has now been set. 4 multi-passenger vans will transport ALL Veterans and ALL Guardians to the Asheville Airport. The flight participants should be at the Old Wal-Mart parking lot at Lake Junaluska between 5:45 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. for the trip to Asheville. Family members and interested others wishing to greet the Veterans upon returning to Asheville should be at the airport by 7:00 p.m. "Wheels down" is expected to be between 7:15 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Guardians should have contacted their Veterans no later than 05/17/2009 with this updated information. Waynesville Rotarians Steve Brown, Henry Foy, and Cecil Yount attended the Waynesville Middle School end of fund raising event on Monday, May 11th. Students presented Yount with checks totaling $1250.00 to be used to sponsor Veterans on their flight to Washington. Additionally, HonorAir Founder Jeff Miller contributed an additional $400.00 in recognition of the WMS students' efforts. Students, who led the fund raising effort, earned the "honor" of throwing cream pie into the face of their selected teacher. Foy and Yount addressed the students and expressed their thanks and appreciation for the hard work done during the fund raising period. School teacher and HonorAir Coordinator Kelly Muse also reports that a full bus load of WMS students will be at the Asheville Airport to welcome the Veterans home on 05/30th. Project update as of 05/10/2009: Waynesville Rotarians and Guardians attended the pre-flight orientation at AB-Technical College in Asheville on 05/09/2009. Guardians reported for duty at 8:30 a.m. and had 1 hour of instruction on procedures to be followed on the May 30th flight. Veterans were met at the old Wal-Mart by our two Mike McKinneys and Steve McNeil. The McKinneys and McNeil assisted the Vets in carpooling and getting directions to the school site. Guardians joined the Vets and family members at 10:30 a.m. for an hour of introduction and instruction for the Vets and their family members. The CBS video was shown and each of the folks responsible for different aspects of the flight addressed the crowd on matters including security, medications to bring, parking at the Asheville Airport, and other related matters. A light rain jacket, digital camera, and cell phone were recommended to be brought by the Vets when possible. Guardians are encouraged to bring a backpack and digital camera as well. Walking sticks and canes are acceptable on the flight. Pockets knives, other sharp objects, and liquid medications over 3 oz's are specificially prohibited and will not be allowd on the flight and will not be returned at the end of the flight. These items should not be brought to the flight. Final plans for transportation are underway to get all of the Veterans transported at one time to the flight on May 30th. Following are a few images from the pre-flight orientation on 05/09/2009:
Project update as of 03/13/2009: All notices of selections for the 05/30th flight and all letters notifying alternates of their status have now been mailed. Waynesville Middle School kicked off their fund raising efforts for HonorAir this past Monday when they viewed the CBS documentary on the school TV network. On Tuesday, during their assembly, HonorAir Flight originator Jeff Miller joined Waynesville Rotarians Steve Brown and Cecil Yount in addressing the assembled student body about the program. In addition to Miller, Brown, and Yount, WWII Veterans Henry Foy and Helen Luckadoo were introduced to the students and they spoke to them about upcoming flight and personal histories. The school's program will end on May 12th, when the students turn in their funds. Students raising the most funds will get to throw creme pies in the face of their selected teachers with the ultimate prize winner getting to throw a pie in the face of the school principal. WMS teacher Kelly Muse has been the driving force behind getting WMS students involved.
Project update as of 03/06/2009: The first set of notices of acceptance for the flight have been mailed to 20 recipients. The remaining 16 recipients plus 4 alternates will be sent over the weekend. Following those letters, notification to the remaining Veterans will be sent advising them that the spring flight is full and that they will have priority for fall flights. The District notified us this week that our club must respond by 04/15th with our intent and expected numbers for the fall flight. On Tuesday, March 10th, Jeff Miller, Stephen Brown, Cecil Yount, one of our Veterans having already made the trip to Washington and one of our Veterans to go on the spring flight will speak to the Waynesville Middle School at 8:00 a.m. This will be their kickoff for fund raising to sponsor a Veteran on the flight. Project update as of 02/19/2009: We are within roughly $800.00 of reaching our goal of $15,300.00 to support 36 Haywood County Veterans on the May 30th flight to D.C. Waynesville Middle School students have agreed to sponsor a Veteran and we are working with Rotarian Steve Brown and school teacher Kelly Muse to bring about a school assembly focusing on this program. An invitation has been extended to Jeff Miller to speak to the students on HonorAir. He is in the process of trying to work out his schedule to attend the school program. Project update as of 02/13/2009: This week we received word that our 36 Haywood County WWII Vets will fly to Washington, DC on 05/30/2009. The orientation for this flight will be on 05/09 and is a mandatory meeting for anyone making the flight on the 30th. Guardians will meet early in the morning of the 9th prior to the orientation meeting for the Vets. The location of the orientation meeting will be announced later. Our Waynesville Rotary club has now received notification of interest from 52 Veterans for our 36 slots. At the Rotary Board of Directors meeting on February 9th, a process by which to select the 36 participants was identified. Notifications to the 36 selected WWII Veterans for the 05/30th flight will go out within the next 2 weeks. Additionally, 5 more Veterans from the existing slots will be identified as alternates for the 05/30th flight in case one or more of the original 36 cannot make the flight. All other application packets will be held for the flights in the fall of 2009. Project update as of 01/26/2009: Today, we received word that Rotary District 7670 has contracted for a 3rd flight for HonorAir. The 3rd flight will occur on 05/30th. The District selection committee as also indicated that they will NOT be splitting up individual club's Veterans so that means all of our nominees will go together. The best news is that we no longer need to be concerned about having our slots cut below 36. The other good news is that incoming District Governor Carol has indicated that she will continue the emphasis on HonorAir and that there will be additional flights in the Fall of '09 if demand and funding support them. Our current status is that we have 47 interested Veterans for our current 36 slots. Of those 36 slots, 23 completed packets have been submitted. We are below our goal of $14,400.00 by about $7,000.00. Additional non-designated funds are needed. We will be requested to submit our funds to the District in the first week of February. The possibility exists that we may be able to add addtional slots to our 36 if we fund the full 36 slots now in need of support. This would allow us to sponsor more Veterans in the Spring flights than we had anticipated. Project update as of 01/23/2009: A total of 39 WWII Veterans have now indicated their interest in participating in this Spring's flights. We have received 12 completed packets of information. Funding continues to run behind the interest demonstrated to this point. We will continue to build our list of interested Veterans beyond the 36 limit. Any Veterans not selected for the Spring flights will be maintained on the alternate list and given priority for the Fall '09 flights should they be developed. Project update as of 01/16/2009: 35 WWII veterans have indicated their interests in making the Spring flights to Washington, DC under the sponsorship of Waynesville Rotary. An additional 9 veterans will be sponsored through the Haywood Rotary Club. Additional listings of interested veterans will continue to be accepted even though the available 36 slots are currently close to being filled. Experience with the program in other areas has clearly shown that not every Veteran, who signs up, will be able to make the trip so having alternates in place and ready to go is critical. Two sets of forms must be filled out and returned to Waynesville Rotary in order for the Veteran nominee to move to the sponsored list that will be submitted to District 7670 for the Spring flights. (See links below...) All interested persons should keep in mind that, as of this writing, the District has 273 committments for 200 seats. If additional committments are made to fill 300 seats, a third plane will be scheduled in late May '09. However, if the additional seats are not committed, each Rotary club will have their number of slots decreased. So, while Waynesville Rotary may have 36 slots at the moment, that does NOT guarantee that the full 36 slots will make the trip in the Spring of '09. Again, Veterans on the list and who have completed their paperwork and returned it to Waynesville Rotary will be considered priority for future flights in the Fall of '09 should those flights occur. Additionally, if sufficient funds are NOT raised for the 36 slots, some of those slots will be elminated. Community Awareness Meeting: Under the sponsorship of the Waynesville Country Club and Inn, a community awareness meeting of the upcoming HonorAir program and flights was held on Monday, January 12th from 6:30 p.m. until approximately 8:00 p.m. The meeting was held in the WCC Inn's Conference Center adjacent to the Pro Shop. The meeting was open to the public. The focus of this meeting was on increasing public awareness of the program, generating sponsorships, and building a list of interested WWII veterans. The program was attended by approximately 60 interested persons. Waynesville Rotary President Cecil Yount hosted the program under the sponsorship of the Waynesville Country Club and Inn. Yount introduced the beginnings of the project and showed the CBS Morning Show video regarding the project. WWII Veterans, who made the November 1st flight to D.C., spoke briefly of their experience. Yount finished the evening by addressing the crowd on issues of sponsorship and signing up for the project. The two forms needed to be completed and returned to Waynesville Rotary may be accessed here:
The files are in Word format. Questions regarding the forms may be forwarded to Waynesville Rotary HonorAir Project by CLICKING HERE! To see images from the November 1st flight, CLICK HERE! To access a form for nominating a WWII Veteran for the trip or to indicate your ability and willingness to sponsor a Veteran, please CLICK HERE!
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