Students at St. John Lutheran School held a special bake sale for Veterans Day 2013 with the intention of sponsoring a local veteran’s trip to Washington D.C. on the Never Forgotten Honor Flight.
The school’s efforts will send St. John congregation members and St. John alumnus Roger Hulke on the Honor Flight this fall. Hulke served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He attended St. John Lutheran School, as did his siblings, his children and his grandchildren. He now has two great-grandchildren who attend St. John.
Hulke said he was very appreciative and humbled to be honored by the students of St. John, a school that is dear to his heart.
“I’m very proud of what St. John is in the city of Merrill,” Hulke said.
Hulke is looking forward to his trip to Washington, D.C. and seeing the war memorials. He was last in the nation’s capitol 30 years ago, but new memorials have been built since then.
Jim Campbell, coordinator of the Honor Flight Central Wisconsin Hub, spoke to students at the school Thursday. He reminded them to thank any veterans they meet for their service.
“You may be the first person to say thank you to that veteran,” he said. “Most of the veterans that served our country have never been thanked by anybody.”
The Central Wisconsin Hub will make its 15th flight to Washington, D.C. in April. The hub has thus far granted free round-trip flights to Washington, D.C. for 1,315 local veterans since its first mission in 2010.
Never Forgotten Honor Flight receives no government funding and relies solely on donations to fund the flights. Campbell added that the central Wisconsin hub has been blessed with a large number of generous sponsors and donors. The efforts of the students at St. John is one example of that outpouring of support from the local communities.