Honor Flight beats deadline, keeps Fresno vets travelling. Will it continue?

There was a moment last week when the future of Central Valley Honor Flight looked uncertain.

The immediate future, at least. The rising cost of its chartered flights, plus hotels and other expenses, put the volunteer group $150,000 short of the money needed to keep its October trip to Washington D.C. on schedule. There were non-refundable deposits to be made, which would be put in jeopardy after July 7. A decision would have to be made.

“We can’t be forfeiting donated money like that,” CVHF co-founder and Board President Paul Loeffler told The Bee on Monday.

So, the group did something it doesn’t normally do. It made a public plea for help.

Within days, the group had raised the bulk of the money and by the Tuesday deadline, it was fully funded for a pair of flights this fall. “It’s what does the community,” Loeffler says.

“It’s a story like this every flight,” he says, “for all these years.”

A decade plus of Central Valley Honor Flights

Central Valley Honor Flight started in 2013 as the sixth Honor Flight chapter in California. The national nonprofit organization flies WWII, Korean and Vietnam veterans to Washington to see their respective memorials, as well as memorials for the Navy, Marine and Air Force, plus the National Museum of the U.S. Army, Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknowns for the Changing of the Guard ceremony. The group pays for all flights, hotels and other accommodations for the three-day trips.

Prior to 2013, local veterans were flown out of San Francisco or Bakersfield.

That first year in Fresno 35, mostly WWII veterans, traveled to Washington D.C.

At the time, it was estimated some 5,000 WWII veterans lived in the central San Joaquin Valley — and they were initially prioritized until 2015, when Honor Flight included its first Korean War vets, and later Vietnam War veterans.

Since then, 2,285 veterans have taken part in dozens of trips, which the group organizes at least three times a year; once in the spring and twice in the fall when travel prices generally are lower. The trips are met with community celebrations as the veterans return to Fresno Yosmite International Airport.

Rising costs met by new donations

Prior to last week, Honor Flights’ fundraising efforts have always been fairly organic.

“This isn’t something that we’ve really done over the years,” Loeffler says.

This is an all-volunteer organization, which means none of its 11 board members (or anyone else, really) get paid. All donations go directly into funding trips, which cost $230K per flight. That number is expected to only increase.

Typically, it has relied on donations from local businesses and service organizations, though a Sierra High School student once donated $40,000 in proceeds from a pig he auctioned off at The Big Fresno Fair. Students from another local FFA chapter started an annual donation drive after a chance meeting with travelling veterans in Washington D.C., Loeffler says.

At this point, they have donated $200,000 to the cause.

“There is a lot of stuff like that.”

The push to meet this current deadline was good, in that it put Honor Flight in front of a new set of donors, people who may have been unaware of the need, which Loeffler says in ongoing. Eventually, the flights will be opened to veterans of the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm, who only recently received their own memorial. It is expected to open to the public in October.

“It’s a loud and clear statement from our community,” Loeffler says.

“We’re going to be at this for a while. We’ll fly as often as we can afford.”

The bulk of the 400 veterans currently waiting to travel served during the Vietnam era, Loeffler says, and the goal of Honor Flight is to “keep this going long enough to get all of them there.”

Which is why the timing (and the public call-out) was important. There are 70 veterans now slated to travel to Washington D.C. in October. If the flight had been postponed, “those 70 vets would be waiting until to next April or May,” Loffler says. “The reality is that some of them wouldn’t be there anymore.”

Central Valley Honor Flight’s next trip is slated for Aug. 31 to Sept. 2, when community members are invited to the airport to greet the veterans on their return.