January 2020 Newsletter

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Chairman’s Corner

Happy 2020 everyone!

We are beginning a new year and a new decade; plus we get to enjoy another Indiana winter- lucky us! We encourage all of our Veteran heroes to be cautious during the snow and ice, we want to see you moving about easily when you come to welcome our next groups of Honor Flight alumni at our Spring flight Homecomings. We look forward to the arrival of Spring!

We are excited about our upcoming fundraiser hosted by the Hendricks County Rotary clubs. On Saturday, February 29th, 5-8pm at the Danville Conference Center we will enjoy an evening of drink, food, fellowship, auctions and, hopefully, a large check to help us continue to fly our Hoosier Veterans to Washington. This is the second year for this event and the 2019 version was incredible; the wonderful folks from the Rotary outdid themselves and were able to raise a significant amount of money for us. They are looking to do better this year and we are very grateful for their unwavering support and hard work. We need to sell out the event’s tickets and spread the word about the ability to bid for auction items online. A link for more information is shown below, hope to see you there!

We have just over 1100 Veterans on our flight waiting list and we receive several more applications every week. Our list is organized by age and service dates, with special attention given to Veterans who are in poor health. We take the most senior Veterans first due to concerns of health and mobility and are working hard to raise the funds to keep flying more Veterans in the coming years. If you or a loved one are on the waiting list, please know you are not forgotten! You only need to apply once; we do not remove Veterans from the list unless they are no longer able to fly with us. Once we receive an application, we send a post card confirming the information is entered into our database. We ask everyone to be patient as we work our way down the list! Every Veteran is important to us.

We continue to hear from our Veterans about what the flight has meant to them, and we share these stories when we visit with civic groups to spread the word about what we do. We have speakers available if your group would like to host a visit to learn more about our mission. Please check in with us regularly on FaceBook (Indy Honor Flight) to keep up with our events and other information!

All members of Indy Honor Flight are unpaid volunteers and many work hundreds of hours making what we do so special. I want to take a moment to thank these selfless men and women for their dedication and love for our Hoosier Veterans. We have no office; our storage space is donated, and we are very careful about how we spend our donated dollars. Our volunteers work from their kitchen tables and around other jobs, yet the work gets done every time, on time! Over 2.700 Veterans have been honored by our Hub since 2012. We are blessed to have the great group we have and are always looking for more folks to help. New Year, new flights, game on! Let’s do this and make 2020 even better than 2019.

In service,

Dale True, Chairman
Indy Honor Flight

Request for Help

The Rotary Club is hosting a fundraiser for IHF on February 29th 2020. Part of the event will be a live and silent auction. We are looking for items to be auctioned off. If you have sporting tickets, concert tickets, a vacation rental, a unique item, or a special talent like wood work, leather work, or jewelry making or just about anything that you would like to donate please contact Maria Larrison at one of the following.

Cell: 317-730-4339
Email: CUBSNUT@ATT.NET

Let’s Eat!

Veterans did you know we sponsor meals in four locations around the Central Indy area for any Veteran that has flown with us? Did you know that we also have guest speakers or entertainment at each meal? Click the link below and find the one closest to you and come out and break bread with us! Bring your Guardian too!

Link to IHF Monthly Meal Information just click on the CALENDAR tab for information on all IHF Events around town!

Come eat with us!!!

Shop Amazon and help IHF!

Valentines Day is just around the corner. If you are looking to get IHF anything how about the gift that gives twice. Buy your love a sweet surprise and send us a portion of the purchase as a gift! Just shop Amazon Smile and they will donate a percentage of your purchase to us!!! Sign up for Amazon Smile and select Indy Honor Flight as the charity you support, that is all there is to it!

smile.amazon.com

NEW REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIANA DRIVERS LICENSE – REAL ID NEEDED TO FLY STARTING OCTOBER 2020

Is your driver’s license Real ID compliant? If it doesn’t have a little gold star up in the corner, that’s a nope.

People in Indiana applying for a new driver’s license, learner’s permit or ID card are being encouraged to go ahead and upgrade to a Real ID-compliant version at the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles. The cards will be required for everyone beginning in October 2020.

For those who have not yet made the switch but are looking to fly with us as a Guardian, Bus Captain or Medic or if you have a loved one or friend on our waiting list please encourage them to make the switch to the Indiana Real ID now. This is required to board an airplane starting October 2020. Below is a link to the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles that will provide more information on what documents are needed, etc.

Everything you need to know about Real ID

IHF Out and About in 2019/2020

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