The Duluth Area Chamber Foundation has partnered with Honor Flight Northland to resume local Honor Flights in 2025. The collaboration has been in the works for several months, and the Duluth Area Chamber Foundation is pleased to announce the next Honor Flight is now scheduled for May 31,2025.

Honor Flight Northland is the local chapter of the national Honor Flight Network, a national nonprofit organization comprised of independent hubs throughout the country working together to achieve the Honor Flight mission. In furtherance of this common goal, Honor Flight chapters have the enormous privilege of showing our nation’s veterans the appreciation and honor they deserve. Participation in an Honor Flight trip gives veterans the opportunity to share this momentous occasion with other comrades, remember the fallen, and share their stories and experiences with other veterans. Honored veterans always travel to Washington D.C. free of charge, thanks to generous contributions from local businesses/organizations and individual donors. While initially focused solely on America’s World War II era veterans, Honor Flight Network has expanded its mission to include those who served during the Korean War and the Vietnam War eras, as well as modern conflicts. To maximize the number of American veterans served by the organization, each eligible veteran may only be honored on a single Honor Flight trip.

Honor Flight Northland is a non-profit organization created to help honor veterans living in Northeastern Minnesota and Northwestern Wisconsin for all their sacrifices. The chapter organizes and transports local heroes to Washington, D.C. to visit and reflect on their memorials. Since 2010, over 1,000 veterans from the region have participated in the program. However, in recent years flights have been limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic, retirements, and funding. The last flight was in the spring of 2023. While applications from interested veterans continue to be accepted, the organization was looking to restructure and in need of a fiscal host. Organizers reached out to the Duluth Area Chamber Foundation earlier in 2024 to gauge interest in working collaboratively to resume the program. Part of the Duluth Area Chamber Foundation’s mission is military and aviation advocacy, so it was a natural fit on many fronts. Staff and board members of the Chamber and Chamber Foundation (Renee Burns, Daniel Fanning, Terese Tomanek, Leah Kohlts and Kathleen Privette) held several meetings with leaders from the Honor Flight Northland (Don Monaco, Lisa Vogel and Judy Greske) which led to the collaboration and path forward.

“Our nation’s Veterans are local and national treasures, and we want to do all we can to help support and thank them for their service and sacrifices,” said Daniel Fanning, executive director of the Duluth Area Chamber Foundation. “Collectively, we are all committed to helping serve and support our community’s veterans and it’s an honor to partner with Honor Flight Northland to resume the local Honor Flight program. The volunteers who have been keeping this program going through the years have done an admirable job serving local veterans and we are grateful for the opportunity to support them and keep it going, hopefully for many years to come.”

“At this time, we have enough funding for the next flight on May 31, 2025, and have worked with Sun Country to secure the flight,” continued Fanning. “However, there are many additional expenses including ground transportation and other logistics that rely on funding from the community. Ideally, we would like to secure enough funding for several flights over the next few years so that we can start planning accordingly and prioritize Veterans who may aging or facing health challenges. We are so grateful for the support and generosity of the region who help make this all possible. We will gladly work with anyone who is interested in helping honor our region’s Veterans.”

To learn more about Honor Flight Northland, including eligibility and applications, please visit honorflightnorthland.org. To learn more about the Duluth Area Chamber Foundation, please visit duluthchamber.com/foundation. Please contact the Foundation at foundation@duluthchamber.com if you are interested in getting involved and/or making a donation.