Coronavirus
Both La Crosse Honor Flights are off for 2020
This could be the first year without a La Crosse Freedom Honor Flight since the local flight program began in 2008, and the coronavirus is the reason why.
The national organization which manages honor flights to Washington for veterans has suspended all of those flights for the rest of 2020, because of COVID-19.
The older veterans who go on the honor flights are at higher risk of becoming sick from the virus than the general public.
La Crosse routinely has two Honor Flights a year, in May and September.
The May flight was called off in early March, just as a wave of cancellations of most scheduled events was beginning.
but the May flight was called off, and the second flight of the year was supposed to happen in September.
Organizer Kathy Van Kirk in La Crosse says veterans who had been scheduled for the May Honor flight that was cancelled will be first in line for the next flight, probably in the spring of 2021.
The Honor Flight program will still have its annual July fundraiser through Festival Foods this summer.