Southern California Soaring Academy

Our accomplishments for 2023 included:warriors soar - our monthly private fly-day plus lunch for veterans dealing with ptsd and other challenges continued to be a beacon of hope. During 2023 we partnered with west la va, loma linda va, long beach va and higher ground usa. The peace and adrenaline rush from Soaring without an engine leaves veterans with a sense of happiness that for many seemed unattainable until this flight. Izzy, former army, "seeing things from up there at that vantage point helped me understand that my problems as i previously saw them are not so big!" I'm so appreciative of this experience". "i feel better, i feel like a better person" a great mental therapy and i felt a whole bunch of gratitude." Over 170+ veterans participated in 2023.

Glider-stem - our outreach to teens: we hosted an los angeles based irvine stem magnet school where middle schoolors had a glider day at their school followed by a fly-day forthe class in april 2023. We also hosed 30+ at risk teens from the junior-cadet program at the lapd who flew with us during their group fly-day after they participated in an aviation workshop that we held at whiteman airport in los angeles. Out of the class one of the students is now a regular flight student and is applying for solo scholarships towards his private pilot rating. We also hosted scouting groups, explorer groups and a 4-h group for field trips and demonstrations, learning about aeronautics, and career paths as well as getting to take the controls up in the air and log in their first flight instruction.