Upcoming Events:
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Everett, Washington July 18, 2009 Event has a Waiting List.Partnering with The Boeing Company! Aurora, Oregon August 8, 2009 Event has aWaiting List.Amarillo, Texas August 29, 2009 Kansas City, Missouri September 12, 2009 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma September 26,2009 Dallas, Texas October 10, 2009 2 0 0 9
Challenge Air GalaNovember 14, 2009Click Here to Download our Silent Auction Form!Click Here to Download our Gala Sponsorship Form! |
Buy Your Raffle Tickets Online
NOW
For this Custom-Built Chopper!
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YOU
COULD WIN this one-of-a-kind custom-built chopper appropriately named The
Aviator: motorcycle meets airplane. Last fall, Cutter Aviation awarded this
beautiful motorcycle to Challenge Air as an opportunity to raise much
needed funds. To celebrate Cutter's 80th anniversary, they had
this unique motorcycle built.
Last month, we officially launched
The Aviator raffle. Only 2000 tickets maximum will be sold. Each ticket is only
$50.
Click here to buy your raflle tickets online and to learn
more about The Aviator. Don't miss your chance to win!
Many thanks to Ken Langley, Raul Ruiz and Richard Morgan and
Lonna Gibson for your great teamwork on this raffle.
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Challenge Air for Kids and Friends is a national children's non-profit organization whose mission
is to offer motivational, inspirational and life-changing experiences
to children
and youth with special needs through aviation.Parents have told us time and again that we are building self-esteem and confidence in their children.Ad Space:If you are interested in advertising through Challenge Air's e-newsletter that is sent to over 5,000 friends, contact
Byron Laszlo for rates. Donations can be
mailed to:Challenge Air8008 Cedar Springs Rd., LB-24Dallas, TX 75235
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Dear Friends & Valued Supporters:
Here in Dallas,
Texas, it's blazin' hot, but the
heat has not slowed down Challenge Air one bit. June has been a busy month with
some internal changes along with amazing events in McKinney,
TX and in Nashville, TN.
The Challenge Air Board of Directors is made up of a
wonderful and very dedicated team of individuals. David Norton, Attorney
at Law,
Shackelford, Melton & McKinley, LLP, has served as President of our
Board of Directors since 2006 and has served as a board member for Challenge Air since 1998. Under David's
leadership and direction as President, Challenge Air has realized many great
successes, and he has sparked great energy and motivation among the other
members of the Board, as well as our staff. In 2007, David approached Mark Shaw,
Office of the General Counsel at Southwest Airlines, Co. to join our Board. Mark graciously accepted. After
serving two years on Challenge Air's Board, Mark rotated off the board this month.
At our June Board
meeting, after serving over eleven years on the board, David Norton also resigned from the Board. At that time a new President was
elected, Dave Vaughan. Dave is the VP of Business Development X Jet World LLC. Dave has been a dear friend and
supporter of Challenge Air since the 1990's, a personal friend of our founder Rick Amber and was part of the original Houston, TX
planning committee for the Houston events. We re-kindled our friendship with Dave last
year. Today, we are proud and excited for Challenge Air to recognize Dave Vaughan
as our new Board President.
On
behalf of the Challenge Air Team, I want to personally extend a very heart-felt
appreciation to David Norton and Mark Shaw for their dedication and time served
on the Board. Both David and Mark have assured us that they will not stay far
and have offered their professional services and personal time to Challenge Air
moving forward.
On June
22, former Board Member, Challenge Air volunteer pilot, and aerobatic pilot,
Ron Barson along with our friend Bryan Piper and others from Barson Utilities,
hosted the Second Annual Barson Golf Classic with outstanding success. Thank
you to the many sponsors and to the players who survived the heat that day. For the second consecutive
year, Mr. and Mrs. White very quietly sponsored a total of four teams. They did not
play, but rather asked that we gift all sixteen positions to our Challenge Air
families and volunteers. In addition, we extended four more playing positions
to our Challenge Air friends courtesy of Wing Aero Products. All in all,
everyone had a blast! Thanks again to the planning team at Barson Utilities and
to all the sponsors! Over $15,000 was raised at the golf tournament to be put towards Challenge Air's 2009 program costs.
Nonprofits
and for profit businesses are in survival mode everywhere. Challenge Air is by
no means an exception. Please know that Challenge Air is working diligently
daily to sustain operations for this wonderfully unique program. If you are in
a position to extend a donation of any amount today, your support in this area
is greatly needed. You may click here or simply call Challenge Air at 214/351-3353 or 877/FLY-KIDS to
find out how you may make a contribution today. Thank you in advance for your
kind consideration.
On a
final note, we recently lost a dear friend, Ilene Stern, after a long and hard
battle with cancer. Ilene was the VP of Advancement for the Frontiers of Flight Museum located at Dallas
Love Field
Airport. Ilene will be
remembered for her sincere passion and many contributions to the Dallas community. For
these reasons, and many others, she was a great inspiration to all who knew her.
Thank
you for being a part of what makes Challenge Air so special for so many
deserving children, their families, the volunteers, and the
pilots.
Warmest
Regards,
Byron
Laszlo
Executive
Director
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June 6th McKinney, Texas Challenge Air Fly Day a Huge Success!
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Thank you to all of our families, volunteer pilots, ground
crew volunteers and sponsors for making this year's McKinney Event a huge
success! If you were part of this event in any capacity, we applaud you. The
day was jam packed with excitement, new connections, and most importantly, empowerment
for the very special children in the McKinney area. By the end of the day on
June 6th, 108 children with  special needs took to the North Texas skies and
discovered the freedom of flight!
Thanks to some wonderful groups like Southwest Airlines,
Lions Club of McKinney, the Westin Stonebriar Resort, McKinney Kiwanis, Random
Acts of Kindness and Southwest Securities the hangar was filled with fun activities,
energetic volunteers, and tasty food throughout the day. And we thank our
volunteers who came out individually to help load the families and serve in
various capacities in the hangar to ensure the Event ran smoothly. Each
volunteer brought compassion, positivity and a can-do attitude to the Event,
going above and beyond to give the children and families a very special day.
 The YMCA and Crull Fitness joined us for the first time at
this Event. We were thrilled to watch new partners interacting with children at
the bounce house, with a fitness course and with plenty of literature about the
exciting new possibilities their organizations have to offer. We're grateful to
returning agencies, such as Canine Companions for Independence and RISE
Adventures, for their continued and unwavering support.
Thanks to Sandy Maldonado with Crull Fitness this Event was
featured as a front page article in Neighbors Go, a McKinney-area division of
the Dallas Morning News. Click here
to read the full article. Pictures of the Event can be seen here. If you have pictures that
you'd like to share, send them my way and I'll add them to our page.
If the McKinney Event was your first experience with us, then
welcome to the Challenge Air family! I hope you were inspired by your
experience and will join us again for future events. For those of you who
continue to participate year after year, we appreciate your dedication to
Challenge Air. First-timers and old-timers alike, we could not do this without
YOU!
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13th Annual Nashville, TN Challenge Air
Fly Day the Best Ever!
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Saturday, June 13, 2009 turned out to be a perfect day to
inspire and motivate 83 physically challenged, seriously ill, and other special
needs children, which does not even include their mothers, fathers and siblings!!!!
This was our 13 Annual Challenge Air for Kids and Friends,
Inc "Event" held at the Smyrna/Rutherford County (Nashville) Tennessee Airport.
This proved to be the BEST ever event held there. I cannot say THANK YOU enough to the planning
committee: John Black, Lois Vallence and
Barbara Nichols with the Smyrna/Rutherford County
Airport Authority(link), Joanne O'Connell with General Mills, Tosha Szabo with Corporate Flight Management, Evelyn Anderson with Rutherford
County, Brian Sutherland with Verizon, Paul Lamb with Wings of Eagles, the infamous Jim Trusty, Bob Kerner and all of his
amazing aerospace education programs, Jay Jackson and everyone from the Smyrna
Air Traffic Control Tower. Thank you ALL for your tireless efforts in making
this an AMAZING EVENT!!
 The day was filled with excitement and joy by all those who
attended and volunteered. Special thank
you also goes out to Carl Anderson and everyone from Lockheed Martin, Chick- Fil-A for providing a wonderful breakfast, VSA Arts of Middle TN, Handicapped Drivers Service, Inc, Rutherford Spine and Wellness Center, all of the
local musical talent that were on hand to entertain everyone, boy those little
girls can play the fiddle like nobody's business. The Tennessee Air National Guard was on hand
with a C-130 and Blackhawk Helicopter for the kids and families to enjoy and
explore, as well as, the Rutherford County Fire Department and their compliment
of fire trucks and ambulances, not to mention the water guns!!! And of course
all the awesome cadets and their supervisors from the Civil Air Patrol, who
kept everything SAFE on the ground,
Finally, to all who volunteered their time Saturday to spend the
day with us. Thank You!! Especially the unsung "HERO'S" of the day, all 17
pilots, particularly Quincy Davis from MTSU's Department of Aerospace who brought out seven aircraft and a whole
contingent of pilots to fly them. You
have helped in no small manner to allow these special needs children to look
beyond any "perceived limitation" and show them the world from a different
view, while at the same time showing each of them a different view of
themselves.
A heartfelt THANK YOU to EVERYONE!!
Theron Wright
East Coast Director
Nashville Parent Testimony:
I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE
THE TIME TO THANK ALL OF YOU THAT TOOK THE TIME AND MADE THE FLIGHT DAY SO
WONDERFUL FOR MY SON (JONATHAN)AND OF COURSE ALL THE OTHER KIDS .THAT WAS
A DAY HE WILL NEVER FORGET AND AS MUCH AS HE TALKS NOW ABOUT IT, WE WILL ALSO
NEVER FORGET (LOL)..THANK YOU AGAIN SO MUCH!
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