LA CROSSE, Wis. -- At a news conference at American Legion Post 52, Freedom Honor Flight officials announced that the fourth flight of World War II veterans from La Crosse, Wis., to Washington, D.C., will be on May 8 and that La Crosse-based Kwik Trip Inc. convenience store chain is donating $50,000 toward that flight, reported The La Crosse Tribune.
Kwik Trip, Tobacco Outlet, Hearty Platter and Kwik Star stores in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin will serve as collection sites for donations during a fundraising effort held from February 12-25, said a report by [image-nocss] WXOW-TV.
"These gentlemen and women made these sacrifices not because they were looking to become heroes or do something famous. They were doing it in their own words because it was the right thing to do. We think if we can repay them in these final years of their lives by giving them a flight out to Washington DC to see a monument dedicated to their hardwork and sacrifice we think that's consistent with our mission trip at Kwik Trip," John McHugh, Kwik Trip corporate communications manager, told the news outlet.
Freedom Honor Flight, based in La Crosse, serves veterans in 20 counties in western Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota and northern Iowa. Other hubs receiving donations to fly veterans to Washington include those in Milwaukee, Appleton, Wausau, Madison, Wis., and locations in Iowa and Minnesota.
The fourth Freedom Honor Flight will take 100 veterans, 50 volunteer guardians and a volunteer medical crew to Washington to see the National World War II Memorial and other monuments.
After the flight, more than 300 veterans will still be on a waiting list for future flights, said the report.
With the May flight, Freedom Honor Flight will have taken more than 400 area World War II veterans to Washington (pictured). The first flight was in October 2008, the Tribune said.
Freedom Honor Flight hopes to have another flight later this year, organization President Charles E. Hanson told the newspaper.Click here to visit the group's website.
Ankeny, Iowa-based Casey's General Stores Inc. sponsored a flight in October 2009.
(Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage.)
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