By Chris Nugent
October has been an exciting month for the APA Scholarship program!
We closed the 2021 APA scholarship cycle at the end of October and had another great turnout for the program with 43 applications being submitted. This is about the same number submitted in 2021 (42 applications) but still up significantly from the 29 we received in 2020 and 24 in 2019. Our program continues to grow!
We recently started our formal review process, and I continue to be impressed with the strong commitment to aviation careers by both high school and college students in Arizona. As you may expect, most applicants want to pursue careers as professional aviators. We are also seeing an increase in the number of applicants that are pursuing careers in aviation maintenance (A&Ps) and air traffic control as well. The aviation industry has come back strong from the pandemic and it’s great to see that we have a full pipeline of future aviation professionals.
However, the most exciting news is a donation to the APA scholarship program from an organization called Operation Freedom Bird (OFB). OFB is a non-profit organization that supported Arizona veterans suffering from PTSD. OFB was founded in 1988 by Pat Lynch, a Vietnam veteran and retired airline captain. Since that time, OFB has taken over 1,500 Arizona veterans on healing journeys to visit the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. These were life changing trips for many veterans, and it was humbling to hear Pat and the other board members speak about their mission and experiences.
For a number of reasons, OFB made the decision to close its non-profit organization and was seeking to contribute their remaining funds to other worthy Arizona non-profits. Based on his aviation background, Pat reached out to the APA, and after several conversations decided to recommend a donation to our scholarship program to support veterans and students pursuing aviation careers in the military.
The process went quickly, and we met with the OFB Board of Directors at Falcon Field on Saturday, October 29th where they presented the APA a check for their donation.
Yes, it’s a check for $100,000 – it’s not a typo! To say the least, we were speechless and very thankful for OFB’s generosity and faith in APA’s mission.
The OFB funds are specifically intended to support scholarships for:
- ·Veterans
- ·Students who want to pursue aviation careers in the military
- ·Students with a family military affiliation (family member(s) currently serving or are veterans)
We receive scholarship applications from veterans and students seeking military aviation careers each year and it will be easy to target the OFB funds to qualified applicants. We’re very honored to continue OFB’s mission to support current and future veterans.
As you know, our scholarship program has been funded entirely by membership donations. Since the OFB donation will only fund scholarships for students with a military affiliation, APA will need to continue to fund scholarships for students seeking to go into the commercial aviation sector.
So, from a bottom-line perspective, your donations are still very important to the overall health of our scholarship program. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the scholarship program as we close out the calendar and tax-year: go here online to Donate. I can tell you that the recipients are truly appreciative of the help in achieving their aviation career goals.
The scholarship committee will be working to complete the evaluation of applications over the next few weeks with the winners announced in December. We will provide an update in next month’s newsletter.
Thank you for your continued support of the scholarship program and helping APA build the next generation of Arizona aviators.
Stay healthy and fly safe.