Young Agents Charity Spotlight: Talons Out
In September not only do the leaves change so does the fiscal year for MAIA and with that brings the passing of the leadership torch for MAIA’s task forces and committees. The Young Agents Committee (YAC) is no different. Giving back to our local communities is very important to the Young Agents. Every year YAC selects a charity to support and this year is no different!
We have decided to support Talons Out which is a local nonprofit that provides FREE honor flights to DC to WWII, Vietnam and Korean war veterans. Our chair, Lisa Lemanski’s grandfather was a WWII veteran who donated to the building of the memorial but passed away before he could see it in person. To honor him and all of our veterans and build on our sense of community we selected Talons.
Talons Out was launched in 2013 and they have flown over 1085 veterans with another 250 planned for 2019. They leave from some airports across the state we are working with the Kalamazoo location and they leave from the Kalamazoo airport and the veterans along with their guardian fly these veterans to Washington DC for the day. The veterans receive a National Guard escort around DC so they can get to their respective memorials. Then they fly home and receive a hero’s welcome back at Wings Stadium in Kalamazoo. Family, friends and the local community gather together to thank them for their service and shake their hands with signs, music and dressed in red white and blue.
While traveling each veteran receives a packet with thank you cards from family and friends called mail call. There are many men and women have not received many thank you's for their service. This is where the YAC comes into play. Our big push for this year is to provide veterans with thank you cards for all they did for their country. Our initial goal was 500 thank you’s. We’ve far exceeded that now and we are closing in on a new goal of 5,000?!?! We would love your help! If you, your agency, family and friends want to help just let us know and we will get some thank you’s over to you.
We will also be raising funds to help Talons provide flights to the veterans. The average cost to fly a veteran to DC and back is around $500 per veteran. We would love to be able to provide a few flights if possible as well.
Lisa and Will Lemanski attended the welcome back party in October and said it was a life changing experience greeting the veterans as they returned home from DC. Each and every veteran was so appreciative and stopped to shake hands, hug us and tell us thank you. There wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd. The overwhelming feeling of gratitude we felt for these men and women is something words cannot begin to describe. It’s a once in a lifetime experience for the veterans and for you. If you would like to help us welcome the veterans back join us on April 20 at Wings Stadium at 8:30 p.m. You won’t regret it!
Written by Young Agents Committee Chair, Lisa Lemanski