Veterans Memorial Park, Honor Flight to benefit from student donations

Students at Springfield – Clark Career Technology Center made a sizable contribution to area veteran’s groups.

The welding class donated $1,000 of money it earned from the recent Welding Rodeo. It is an annual contest that showcases juniors’ and seniors’ skills to weld unique structures from scrap metal. The class raised a total of $3,600.

RELATED : Springfield Clark County CTC students compete in welding rodeo

The Clark County Veteran’s Memorial Park and Honor Flight Dayton each received $500. Local veteran’s advocate Randy Ark told this publication this is the second time the class has made a donation in the past couple of years. He is thrilled about the contribution for a few reasons.

“One is to getting the money for the park, which we need, and two is the attitude of these young students.” Ark said.

The money is needed because of future plans for the park are very costly.

“We are selling pavers or bricks. So, there’s going to be a walkway through the park that’s going to honor the veterans and organizations that supports the veterans,” Ark said.

The group needs $380,000 to finish the memorial. It will have a Vietnam area, a stage, benches, and an arbor with vegetation. Money will also go to landscaping and engravings on the monuments.

Junior Zack Parcels wants to be a welder and he is happy his skills can help people in his community. He and his classmates made a derby bike out of metal for the rodeo. It sold for $50.

“It feels good just to know that the things that we can make out of nothing can sell to help the community,” Parcels said.

Money raised will also be used to help transport veterans to Washington D.C. said Al Bailey with Honor Flight Dayton.

“To send a veteran back to D.C. to see the memorials is $500 and so we are doing whatever we can to raise that kind of money.”

The group completes this trip four times a year.

“Each one of these charters, we have to raise $90,000 because we are taking a total number of passengers - 181,” Bailey said.

Of that number, 110 to 115 will be veterans. They will be taken regardless of their shape, condition, oxygen or wheelchair. All the money raised goes to covering the veteran’s expenses, as well as the guardians, who are going on the trip. A medical team is covered too.

The trip also pays for children. Several students raised their hands when asked if they had any veterans in their family and they were excited to learn they could accompany their relative to the national memorials.

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