A SNAPSHOT OF THE RAF WAY
Throughout a week in late April, we took “snapshots” across this country of folks working hard and willingly demonstrating the RAF Way, and we’re proud to share them with you.
Our first glimpse is in Southeast Alaska, where Alaska Liaison Jeff DeFreest and his wife Kari gathered volunteers to rehabilitate a couple of public-use lakeside cabins to save them from the threat of closure. RAF Director Jeff Russell committed his help, and flew in from Wisconsin. No matter how close you may live, it takes commitment to get to these remote cabins.
Next, we take a look at San Marcos, Texas where volunteers from as far away as California carefully dismantled the colossal RAF Fire Hub from the airport grounds. They numbered, loaded, and shipped each brick over 1,100 miles and will reassemble the display at its permanent home at Triple Tree Aerodrome in South Carolina.
Closer to the middle of the nation, volunteers brought tools to the Lincoln, Montana airport and pre-drilled the rest of the mile of jackleg fence posts and poles to finish the project at Moose Creek, USFS airstrip in Idaho, in cooperation with the USFS.
No matter from where the call goes out, RAF supporters rise to the challenge, often flying, driving – or we can recall in some cases, taking trains and boats – to lend a hand. These folks share whatever they can – special skill, organizational talent, equipment, transportation, cooking for a crew, or just plain brawn. No matter the contribution, each takes away the satisfaction that they have left things better than they found them, all saying, “Thanks for including me.”
And what’s even better, they keep answering those calls.
That’s the RAF Way.
Submitted April 30, 2024
By Carmine Mowbray