BETH WHITE • 02/22/24

PBS News Hour Features
Our Women Build Planes Team

We are thrilled to share that the new, long-awaited short film in the series, Brief But Spectacular, aired on PBS NewsHour on February 22, 2024, and featured Habitat for Aviation. The brilliant team of artists from Second Penninsula Production, who visited Habitat for Aviation back in November 2023, captured and wove together the magic happening in our little hangar at Franklin County State Airport.

WATCH: How these teenagers are helping create a work-based school experience

Each of our Women Build Planes team members, all of whom are Harbor Freight Fellows, got to share the the ways in which they are engaging with their hands in the skilled trades and doing what makes their hearts sing along supportive adult mentors.

Second Penninsula’s team asked insightful questions that sparked meaningful reflection about the future of education. We’re deeply appreciative of their efforts to highlight the ways in which Big Picture Learning has helped create equitable opportunities for youth to achieve their greatest potential in non-conventional learning environments all over the world, including at Habitat for Aviation, for the last three decades.

Right Rudder:
Our Airplane Build is Taking Off

A pre-assembly pause: Emma Cornett takes a moment to acknowledge our incredible opportunity to build a plane with an all-girl team before launching into assembly mode.

To date, Habitat for Aviation is thankful for the 90+ donations we’ve received from our champion of supporters — each a validation of our mission.

To support the next generation of aviation maintenance technicians and avionics specialists for conventional and electric aircraft through apprenticeship opportunities anchored in relationships, relevance, and practice in an inclusive, welcoming environment where youth come to deeply know themselves and become deeply known by supportive adults.

In addition to individual contributions, we are honored to have garnered support from several foundations. We are grateful to Big Picture Learning’s Harbor Freight Fellowship Initiative and B-Unbound, EAA Chapter 613, the Robert and Rhea Brooks Family Fund at the Rhode Island Foundation, Vermont Community Foundation, Green Mountain Power, George W. Mergens Foundation, 100 Women Who Care Franklin County, as well as the private gifts from our family and friends.

This outpouring of support allowed us to purchase our RANS S-21 Outbound airplane kit. In October it arrived in two mammoth-sized crates, which were immediately painted pink by Joann White and Andrea Clark. The Women Build Planes team got right to work inventorying the thousands of parts. Sunday, February 18th marked our 14th build day. Rudder and vertical stabilizer are done and we are nearly finished with our horizontal stabilizer and elevators. Soon we will begin the wings.

Each build day not only brings forth new elements of challenge, learning, and confidence-building for each of our girls, we also get a lot of opportunities to practice many new skills. With each part completed, it feels more and more like an airplane. Building our RANS S-21 is exacting and arduous — like many of life’s most meaningful projects — each rivet has to be precise and we have to fix and re-do anything that does not meet our rigorous standards. We practice a lot and have gotten pretty good at drilling out and re-doing pieces that need perfecting. Our Sundays have become sacred, a much-needed space to deepen relationships with one another — to grow both individually and as a group — creating bonds that will likely last a lifetime.

The Real Heroines

Jane & Bianca - Badass A&P Volunteer Mentors

Our Women Build Planes team members look up to and are so thankful for our beloved mentors, Jane Thomson (left) and Bianca Marrier (right).

Jane Thomson and Bianca Marrier are trailblazers in their own right — being the first of less than a dozen female A&Ps in Vermont, certified by the FAA. Their commitment to the Women Build Planes team is undeniable as they donate nearly every Sunday to share their expertise and guide us through building our RANS S-21. They have embraced their roles as mentors with grace and humility — and they are darn good at communicating and sharing their expertise with each of our builders. We are incredibly thankful to have these two badass women leading our team.

If you are an A&P or know someone who is excited about mentoring youth and adults who love working with their hands, we have two airplane kits waiting in the wings and a growing list of folks eager to work on finishing these planes. Our Zenith Zenair and Baby Lakes, both donated by generous friends of EAA Chapter 613 and Habitat for Aviation, are ready to be completed and flown.

Breaking Barriers,
One Youth at a Time

Rewriting the Narrative Around the Skilled Trades

The aviation sector is experiencing rapid growth and faces significant challenges. Alongside a widespread pilot shortage, there is a critical lack of qualified maintainers to sustain the industry’s expansion. Without intervention, projections suggest a 24% deficit of 43,000 maintainers by 2027 (Oliver Wyman).

Habitat for Aviation aims to confront this shortage head-on by actively encouraging individuals who have historically been underrepresented in the industry, particularly women, who presently constitute less than 3% of aircraft mechanics, to explore the field in a safe and welcoming learning environment.

Our programming focuses on introducing individuals from all backgrounds to the wonderful world of aviation — with the specific goal of attracting future aviators when they are young. We do this through free Young Eagle Flights with EAA Chapter 613, summer and after school programming, and with hands-on Harbor Freight Fellowships where youth work alongside adults in the field.

Relationships, Relevance,
& Practice

Jane Thomson (right) helps Abby Demar (left) with match drilling the horizontal stabilizer frame.

The heart of our mission is grounded in the cultivation of meaningful relationships between youth and adults, united by their shared passion for aviation. We’ve witnessed beautiful connections form when we work together to fly, build, and fix airplanes. Our approach, modeled by our friends at Big Picture Learning, is centered in relevance and practice through real work being done alongside mentors who are experts in the field and with whom deep and meaningful relationships are established. These components are the secret to our early successes. 

Modern Rosies in Social Media

Women Build Planes Team Member, Taylor Bushey, a Modern Rosie, flexing confidence and grace.

Thanks to our social media guru and photographer extraordinaire, Zoë Brosky, we’ve been able to reach a wider audience through reels and media posted on our TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Linked-In pages. In fact our “We’re girls building a plane” reel on TikTok has been viewed over 8,000 times!

In the fall we received a generous Regional and Local Impact Grant from the Vermont Community Foundation, which enabled us to work with an incredible graphic designer, Ian Robinson, on our branding. Together, after many months of playing around with images, we landed on a logo that captures the heart and essence of Habitat for Aviation and were able to integrate these elements into our refreshed Habitat for Aviation website.

Our windsock: A beacon for home, a source of guidance for take-offs and landings, ever-changing, providing important information.

The Habitat for Aviation windsock, side-by-side with our other branding, is helping us articulate our unique identity to stand out as an emerging leader in the aviation workforce development space.

Fly Girls

Seven Days’ Alison Novak Visits our Hangar

Fly Girls article, a 3-page spread, hit the pages of Seven Days on February 21st, 2024.

We were thrilled to welcome Seven Days reporter, Alison Novak, who spent an afternoon with our Women Build Planes Team on February 11, 2024. Her delightful article Fly Girls: A Franklin County Nonprofit Is Drawing Young Women Into Aviation Careers, beautifully captured the essence of our mission and highlighted the transformative journey on which we’ve embarked to encourage youth, especially women, to explore careers in aviation. We loved Novak’s insightful questions and genuine interest in our programs, and were grateful for the opportunity to share more about our non-profit’s plans for the future.

Novak painted a vivid picture of our bustling hangar at the Franklin County State Airport, where youth and adult women, clad in vibrant pink overalls, are shattering gender stereotypes through their hands-on experiences in aviation. In an interview on WCAX, Novak further shared details about our work. As we continue to expand our initiatives we are grateful for the support of our community, especially for the dedicated volunteers who share our vision of a strong and diverse aviation industry, and for our friends in the media spaces who are magnifying our important message.

What We’re Reading, Listening to & Watching

Parenting from the Passenger Seat: How Our Children Develop Capabilities, Connections, and Meaningful Lives by Pam Roy

Our friend and B-Unbound co-Founder, Pam Roy’s “Parenting From The Passenger Seat” offers a fresh perspective on empowering children to navigate their own paths. This book invites parents to trust their children’s decision-making abilities and provides insights to help them cultivate a sense of purpose and direction. Through personal anecdotes and practical strategies, Roy explores alternatives to traditional education, like Habitat for Aviation.

Drawing from Viktor Frankl’s theories on finding meaning, Roy shares stories and tools to guide parents in fostering confidence and independence in their children. From preschool to college, Roy’s experiences with her own daughters illuminate the journey of parenting with trust and support. With innovative approaches and solution-oriented steps, this book is inspiring readers — especially our Habitat for Aviation’s “Hangar Parents” — to contribute to positive change in education and child development. And it’s also available as an audiobook for those who prefer to listen.

Nicole Avant: “Think You’ll Be Happy” on the Making Space Podcast with Hoda Kotb

This episode left a lasting impression, particularly when Nicole Avant shared about the ways in which her family appreciated and recognized the contributions of their ancestors. “People sat in for you. They marched for you. They were enslaved for hundreds of years, and they didn’t give up. And you are the promise of all of these people before you,” Avant recalls her mom saying. This resonated so deeply because with our Women Build Planes team we discuss and recognize the women who came before us, who broke tremendous barriers. We pay homage to the women of WWII who worked in factories building all sorts of aircraft, including B-17s, and the WASPs who not only test flew these flying fortresses, but also trained their male counterparts to fly them too.

American Symphony

Watching American Symphony lifted me and resonated especially deep having recently survived breast cancer treatments myself during the challenging times of COVID. Just months before Suleika Jaouad’s own journey with leukemia treatments commenced, I made that all too familiar trip to the hospital.

“Creativity is my way of making sense of the world, especially during difficult moments,” a quote made by Jaound in the film that struck a deep chord. I too found solace and meaning in my own creative expression — through painting and writing — which gave me comfort during the eight rounds of chemotherapy, the double mastectomy, the 25 radiation treatments, the oophorectomy, and the months and months of physical therapy (which I still do every week).

When Jaouad’s doctor told her that she had to do chemotherapy indefinitely, my heart ached for her and suddenly the side effects that I have to manage from the anti-cancer drugs that I will take for the next decade seemed to pale in comparison to what she is having to endure. In the end, these are small sacrifices for the gift of LIFE.

“When I was sick, I vowed that if I survived, it had to be to live a good life, an adventurous life, a meaningful one,”Jaound said — a statement that resonated and echoed a similar pledge as I made as I negotiated with Death — a promise to live my life to it’s fullest with my primary core value always at the forefront: to make a difference. Habitat for Aviation is helping me make good on this promise, and for that, I am grateful.

We Welcome Your Gifts

Please consider making a tax deductible gift to Habitat for Aviation. Your support will help offset the cost of programming, enable us to finish our RANS S-21 Airplane Build (engine, avionics, and paint are still needing to be purchased), and help us take steps towards renovating our warehouse into a hangar to serve more individuals who love working with their hands and want to explore the incredible field of aviation. We have the opportunity to apply for the U.S. Department of Economic Development Administration 50:50 design/engineering and construction grants, and will submit our proposals as soon as the matching funds are in hand.

With each passing day, more and more youth and adults reach out wanting to know how to get involved. Just last week we got a call from a 19-year old, Joe, from Iowa who is contemplating relocating to Vermont so he can get his A&P license through apprenticeship with Habitat for Aviation. Let’s make it possible for Joe and youth and adults like him to realize their dream of working in aviation through learning and practicing in the real world alongside supportive adults working in the field.

Join us!