SOAR! Lets Cardinal Services Clients, Public Get Close To Planes & Emergency Vehicles
SOAR! Lets Cardinal Services Clients, Public Get Close To Planes & Emergency Vehicles
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
SOAR! Lets Cardinal Services Clients, Public Get Close To Planes & Emergency VehiclesDozens of people turned out to the SOAR! event Thursday at the Warsaw Municipal Airport to see planes and emergency vehicles upclose.
This was the first year SOAR! was open to the public. In 2022, it was limited to Cardinal Services clients.
Airport Manager Nick King explained that the wife of his line supervisor, Ray Scott, works at Cardinal Services “and the two of them thought it would be a fun way to get Cardinal clients to come out, be able to see aircraft and other equipment that they don’t normally get to go out and see. And, so, he brought me the idea and we sat down and did it. This is year two and what we’ve come up with so far.”
Cardinal Services Business Development Director Tony Peterson said Ray and Betsy Scott approached Cardinal and wanted to do something special between the airport and Cardinal, not only for the people who Cardinal supports but also the community.
“It’s a great opportunity for folks to get to see all of the airplanes, vehicles and also just get integrated with the community,” Peterson said.
It was decided to open the event up to the public after talking with Cardinal.
“Last year, we wanted to kind of test run to see how everything would work. It worked really well, and Cardinal was actually the ones who said let’s open it up to the public and invite everyone out, and we thought that was a great idea, so we did that,” King said. “This year, we invited the county, so the County Highway Department and Sheriff’s Office decided to participate as well.”
Along with the county departments, on hand Thursday were the Warsaw Police Department, Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory, Warsaw Street Department and Lutheran EMS.
As for the aircraft on hand, King said they belonged to people who live in Warsaw and the surrounding areas.
“They said, ‘You know what, we’re OK with bringing our airplanes out and showing people what we do out here at the airport.' PWI was kind enough to bring their jet out and open it up and show the public what the business aircraft look like,” King said.
Some of the aircraft at SOAR! are also owned by businesses while others are just owned by members of the public.
Peterson noted there was a good mix of Cardinal clients and the public out at Thursday’s event.
“I know we have some folks from our Dream Teams program out here, along with some folks from our day services, our community living programs and our residential programs,” he said.
The two-hour event also helped raise some money for Cardinal Services.
“The airport and T-Zone Custom Apparel have been working. We’ve got some sponsors, we’ve got some T-shirts for sale. BIT Computers out of Manchester actually purchased all of the food, so all of the proceeds from the food sales is going to be donated to Cardinal Services,” King said.
Food included hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, chips and a drink.
“We’re excited that so many people from the public are coming out. We’re hoping to make this an annual event and make it even bigger and better next year,” King said.
Peterson said, “I just think it’s a great opportunity to bring the community and Cardinal Services together, and to just share a great time together.”
For more information about Cardinal Services, visit their website at www.cardinalservices.org, or their Facebook Instagram and LinkedIN pages.
