A group of pilots took to the skies over western Canada for two weeks to raise awareness and funds for Hope Air.  That’s a national charity that provides free flights and accommodation for Canadians in financial need who must reach medical care far from home. Volunteer Marilyn Staig explained during a stop in Flin Flin Sunday the fund raising expedition featuring 15 planes and approximately 20 volunteers took off from Drumheller Alberta flying to Churchill Manitoba and back to Nelson BC.  She said this is one of those expeditions where they get a whole bunch of pilots who come along on the expedition and they fundraise and get sponsors and they just try to raise as much money as they can and have a good time while they’re doing it.

Pilot Lee Arsenault has been with Hope Air since 2016. He explains the private pilots like himself tend to go to those locations where there is no commercial airline traffic available and so these people who are in very remote locations if they can’t get to a bigger airport to get a commercial flight then that’s when they step in and pick up the patients and quite often an escort and fly them to the urban centers for medical services.

This is the fourth annual Give Hope Wings expedition aiming to raise 400 thousand dollars to provide 16 hundred flights a goal they have already passed.  For more information go to www.hopeair.ca.