Mary Gilpin, of Girard, has committed a good deal of her time to honoring veterans in various forms, which led her recently to helping more area veterans to be able to participate in Parsons High School’s Honor Flight.
PHS Honor Flight covers the costs annually for groups of veterans to travel to Washington, D.C. to see their memorials, and covers the costs of the high school students who accompany each one them on the trip. The Honor Flight committee holds various fundraisers throughout the year, and accepts monetary donations on an ongoing basis, but Gilpin had another idea.
“I quilt with a group in Pittsburg that’s called the Quilts of Valor. We give quilts to veterans. Any veteran (who has served overseas) can apply for a quilt from Quilts of Valor, to say thank you for their service and what they’ve done,” Gilpin said.
She is also a member of the Oceanus Hopkins Chapter of the D.A.R. (Daughters of the American Revolution) in Pittsburg.
“I thought, ‘You know, I need to put those two things together,’” Gilpin said.
So, she made a quilt to donate to the PHS Honor Flight on behalf of the Oceanus Hopkins chapter of the D.A.R., for Honor Flight to use it as a money-making project.
The patriotic quilt is a lap quilt, a little smaller than a twin size quilt. She also quilted a table runner/wall hanging.
“I gave both of those things to them so they could raffle them off,” Gilpin said.
The PHS Honor Flight students have been selling raffle tickets for those items.
Committee member Debbie Shaffer said tickets remain available through Oct. 20 from any student who will be accompanying a veteran on the Honor Flight in May. The night of Oct. 20, they have planned a Military Appreciation Night at the football game. Tickets will be sold up to before the start of the football game that evening. They are one ticket for $1 or six tickets for $5.
The winner of the raffle will be announced during the game.
Honor Flight started with paying the travel costs for World War II veterans, the numbers of which have dwindled. Then they began taking Korean War and Vietnam War veterans to D.C. the last few years.
Gilpin said supporting the Honor Flight organization is something she is happy to do considering everything veterans have given. As it happens, one of her own family members may soon be traveling on an Honor Flight.
“My son is a veteran and when they get everything together for the Iraq veterans to be able to go, they will have an application for him to fill out so that he can take advantage of it, too,” Gilpin said.