Finding What Made Her Heart Sing & Sharing that Opportunity
About seven years ago, Beth White read West with the Night, the story of aviatrix Beryl Markham, and was so moved by Markham’s courage that she thought, If Beryl Markham could do that in the 1930s, why can’t I fly? After taking a discovery flight of her own, there was nothing that could keep her from learning how to fly.
Not long after, a tiny green-and-white Cessna 150 and a hangar at Franklin County State Airport came into her reality, and she began flight training in earnest. After earning her private pilot’s license and spending more and more time at the airport, she met an elder mechanic named George Coy, who said something that changed her trajectory:
It was an invitation that expanded Beth’s sense of what was possible. Soon, she found herself working alongside George any chance she could, turning wrenches, learning by doing, and marveling at how her family roots in the trades and her background in education were beginning to weave together.
As Beth moved through Franklin County airport and other airfields during her flight training, she noticed something she could no longer ignore:
She was often the only woman, and there were no young people. She decided she was going to do something about that.
As an educator shaped by Big Picture Learning’s belief that the student is the curriculum and the community is the school, Beth had spent years helping schools center young people’s interests and connect learning to the real world. At the airport, she saw an opportunity to bring that same philosophy into aviation: powerful mentors, meaningful work, and a place where young people could discover what made their hearts sing.
Through EAA Chapter 613, scholarships, mentoring, and hands-on opportunities, the beginnings of something larger started to emerge. The awarding of Big Picture Learning’s first Harbor Freight Fellow, Julie, marked an important turning point. What began with one fellow grew into dozens more—young people learning through real work, shoulder to shoulder with industry mentors, like George, on real airplanes.
In 2021, just two weeks before her instrument checkride, Beth discovered a lump near her armpit. What followed was a ten-month battle with invasive ductal breast cancer: chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, radiation, and surgery—all during the height of the COVID pandemic.
In those dark nights, she kept returning to Viktor Frankl’s reminder that to bear almost any how, you need a why.
She asked herself hard questions: What contribution am I going to make in this lifetime? How will I be remembered? Her answer became clear. She wanted to be known as a woman who made a difference. She wanted to create a place where courage, belonging, and meaningful work could come together—a place where youth and adults could find purpose, build confidence, and begin real pathways into aviation.
Beth White
Ten months later, in October 2022, Beth founded Habitat for Aviation.
What emerged was an interwoven expression of everything that had shaped her: a distinctive educational philosophy, her blue-collar Vermont roots in farming and the trades, her newfound love for aviation, and her belief that people become their strongest selves when they are entrusted with real work and surrounded by a community that believes in them.
Habitat for Aviation began as a response to what Beth saw missing at the airport: women, young people, visible pathways, and a true sense of belonging. It began as a commitment to build a place where people learn through relationships, relevance, and practice—and where they do not have to wait to start living–to find what makes their hearts sing–to pick a problem and start solving it.
What soon became
clear was this:
Women needed an affinity space in which to learn, build, and belong—an environment where they could ask questions freely, gain confidence through real work, and see themselves reflected in aviation in ways many never had before. After receiving a donation of a Rans S-21 Airplane build, we launched WOMEN BUILD PLANES.