Challenge Air Part Deux

Tags

airplane, Charity, children, Dallas, family, flying, kids, nonprofit, North Texas, special needs, Young Adult Volunteer Organization

I have written about Challenge Air before, but each experience is different. I volunteered with them again a couple of weeks ago through the Young Adult Volunteer Organization Meetup group.

You can read my previous entry if you want all the details about the organization and how fly days work, but basically, pilots volunteer to fly special needs children around for about half an hour and let them steer the plane to build their confidence and give them and their families an awesome experience. Volunteers lead the families to the planes, help get them situated, and keep them safe.

This event was at the Dallas Executive Airport in Oak Cliff and had some really great entertainment during downtime.

The clowns were making balloon animals as always.

Cheerleaders and the mascot (Dunker the Dog) from the Texas Legends NBA Development League team cheered on the participants as they boarded and deplaned. They also did a dance routine.

A special needs gymnastics company brought some equipment for the participants and their siblings to goof around on. It looked really fun.

Then there was this guy.

That’s apparently Spandy Andy. He’s an entertainer whose mission is to spread positivity through dance, and I can attest that it works. He had everybody smiling and a lot of the crowd dancing. I just looked him up and found out he was on Canadian So You Think You Can Dance and Wipeout Canada.

I only volunteered for the morning, so I only got to help two families fly. But it was still really cool. Our first co-pilot entrusted me with his balloon, and it somehow came untied and flew off. Fortunately, he was too excited to notice. One of my teammates joked, “You had one job!” Whoops.

Anthon and his brother loading passengers

Our second co-pilot, Roberto, was very enthusiastic. He not only wanted to ride in the plane and steer; he was ready to parachute out or at least race some other planes. After landing, he announced that he wants to be a pilot some day and give rides to other kids. Hopefully in about 20 years I will see Pilot Roberto flying at another Challenge Air event. He made my day.

Hai and Anthon goofing off during some downtime

One cool new thing at this event was that the kids got to put their handprints on the planes’ wings in washable paint after their flights. I don’t know how they came up with that idea, but the kids seemed to love it.

Although I signed up for the event through YAVO, I ended up on a load team with complete strangers. As always, it was really nice to meet them. The couple on my team told me they actually met while volunteering at a previous Challenge Air event. How cool is that? I told you volunteering is a good way to meet kind, fun people! Maybe even your life partner.

At the speech before the fly day started, the event chair said 120 kids would fly that day with 21 volunteer pilots. I am sure they all had an amazing time and made some lifelong memories.

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Challenge Air

Tags

Challenge Air, flight, kids, special needs

Note: Edited for clarity.

Challenge Air is headquartered in Dallas but actually holds events all over the country. According to its website, “Challenge Air builds self-esteem and confidence of children and youth with specials needs, through the experience of flight.” On Fly Day, pilots volunteer their time and four-seat planes to take special needs kids and two members of their families in the air and actually let the kids steer the planes. I have participated twice in McKinney, but they also have Fly Days at Love Field and in Ft. Worth.

This is a really fun, unique, and rewarding volunteer experience. Beyond the usual opportunities, such as setting up and helping with registration, you can help load the families on the planes, cheer for the kids as they take off and land, or even direct airplane traffic on the ground. And if you have a cool pilot, you often get to ride in a tiny, terrifying plane.

Load teams usually consist of about four people. One person is the team lead and gets a special yellow vest and a clipboard, while everyone else gets an orange vest. All of the participants receive a balloon with a number on it. The Civil Air Patrol kids listen to the radios and put Post-its on an easel indicating when your team needs to find its next participant.

While the kids are waiting for their ride, they can eat hamburgers, look at the various booths, and enjoy some entertainment. There are usually clowns making balloon animals and sometimes animals to play with.

When it’s time to take the family out to the plane, you walk them down a red carpet and onto the tarmac as everyone cheers, making sure nobody runs into a propeller, and help them get into the plane and put their headphones on. While they are out flying, you procure their certificate of completion and wing pin, which you present to them on landing. Sometimes they ask you to hold their balloon or take their picture.

It’s really great to see how happy everyone is after the flight. If nothing else, you know they had one really fun day.

I think this experience is almost as rewarding to the volunteers as it is to the participants. Last time, I got to go out on a flight with a couple of other volunteers (a 9-year-old girl and her dad). I had been skydiving, so the tiny plane was not new to me, but I wasn’t quite as afraid since I knew I didn’t have to jump out and actually got to enjoy the view. The girl did a great job steering; actually, I think she did a better job than the pilot. Her dad looked completely amazed, ecstatic, and proud the whole time. One thing I didn’t realize until close to the end was that I’d never actually landed in a plane that small, so that was interesting. And by interesting, I mean terrifying. But kids tend to be a lot braver than adults.