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Riverview Village activities director Saundra Bottom, left, and resident Nancy Beavin have a picture snapped before taking off on a flight with Never Too Late on Wednesday. Bottom was not scheduled to fly, but was talked into it when one of the residents backed out. |
Flying the Silver Skies
Nonprofit grants wishes to four Clarksville retirement home residents
By BRADEN LAMMERS
News and Tribune
May 27, 2010
SELLERSBURG — It’s never too late.
It’s never too late to do something you’ve always wanted, try something you’ve never done before or rekindle an old passion.
That was evident at the Clark County Regional Airport on Wednesday afternoon as four residents from Riverview Village — a Clarksville retirement home — were given the chance to take flight thanks to a group called Never Too Late.
The nonprofit, Indianapolis-based organization provides opportunities for residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities to fulfill long-desired wishes or dreams. For Billy Berry, Riverview Village resident, the passion was and has always been airplanes.
“I flew in and out of here a lot,” he said while he was waiting to go up in the air at Clark County Airport.
Berry said he would often fly with a friend who was a private pilot and although he never earned his own pilot’s license, Berry said he has plenty of hours logged in the “right seat.”
The opportunity to take Berry up in a plane again started with a passing conversation he had with Saundra Bottom, activities director at Riverview Village.
“We were outside, I think it was Thunder [Over Louisville] weekend, and he said, ‘I’d love to get in a plane again,’” Bottom said.
The conversation prompted Bottom to call Never Too Late, and it only took hours before she received a response that the organization would support the plan.
Getting the opportunity to fly again, no doubt, meant a lot to Berry.
“I’d fly on a hang-glider if I had to,” he said. “I just like it .. in every aspect.”
Waiting while the plane taxied around the runway to pick up its passengers, his excitement was palpable.
“Isn’t this a beautiful day to fly?” Berry asked rhetorically. “Oh, man, pretty plane, too.”
After walking outside to climb in the Cesna 1-72 Bottom said, “he’s been ready to go for days.”
The wish granted Wednesday is one of several this month that will push Never Too Late to more than 2,000 wishes since its inception in 10 years ago. The nonprofit was founded by Bob Haverstick, who started the program because he said, “I was looking for a new sense of purpose.”
From its founding, the group was designed to provide a setting of inter-generational exchange. It’s about making connections, about taking people who may feel forgotten and showing them someone cares and about remembering them and honoring them for all they have ever done or been all of their long lives, according to Never Too Late’s Web site.
The organization raises about $70,000 per year to fulfill the wishes submitted; the cost of which averages just less than $300 per wish. Need-based equipment such as walkers and wheelchairs also are provided by the group.
The affect of granting a wish to a senior is felt not just by that individual, but also by the other residents, family members and even the staff of the retirement homes.
“It’s a ripple effect and it makes other people take notice,” Haverstick said. “[Being elderly] doesn’t mean they don’t still have aspirations and dreams — they’ve just been pushed to the side.”
When those dreams are fulfilled, the affect is obvious.
“The kid comes out in them again, that’s what it is,” Haverstick said.
Other residents took notice when Bottom offered the chance to go up in the single-engine plane.
“What’s wonderful about it ... just putting that up on the bulletin board and making people think about there is more to life than just this nursing home,” she said.
Residents Ruth Walls, Nancy Beavin and her husband, Bernie Beavin, all took to the sky Wednesday.
For Nancy Beavin, it certainly wasn’t her first time up in the air. She is a former airplane and helicopter pilot.
“I was about 14 [years-old] when I started,” she said. “I had my fixed-wing license before I ever had my driver’s license. It was something I always wanted to do. I was hooked before I ever went up.”
Although she originally went along to watch, last-minute changes allowed the former pilot and her husband to climb in an aircraft on the second flight of the day.
Though Bernie Beavin, a former jet engine mechanic, conceded he was more interested in getting back on the ground than lifting off, he was “a willing accomplice,” he said.
“Pilots are generally a different breed of people,” Nancy said. “Just the sheer desire of wanting to go up in the air [and] once you get up there .. you can get in a small airplane, and set up all your controls right and just sit up there and look around and it’ll take you where you want to go. It’s pretty cool.”
Nancy Beavin climbed into the plane shortly after Berry touched down.
He got out of the plane beaming.
“Wonderful,” he said. “Not just good, I had an excellent time. For the ones that have never flown, they don’t know what they’re missing.”
