Pilots Continue To Carry

Supplies To Vermont

A Vermont Flood Relief box located at The Newtown Bee has been emptied and refilled several times with goods for those communities entirely washed out by flooding.

Residents and pilots Ben Kugielsky and Christopher Cain have flown to Vermont several times in recent weeks to deliver goods to a relief organization’s distribution point.

“If people keep donating, I will keep flying,” Mr Kugielsky said this week. Their most recent flight on Monday, September 19, saw a full plane load. “I had to take the back seats out,” he said. His single engine plane was “filled to the top.” As they unloaded supplies at the Vermont airport, Mr Kugielsky ran into a man who had lost his house. The man and his family “have been relying on the distribution point.”

He feels good about the help he is bringing to the nearby state that in many areas was devastated by floodwaters. Taking his plane to Vermont “is a great use of aviation,” he said. The roughly four-hour car ride is accomplished in the air in about one hour, he said. And, he is able to get to the airport without using roads that are compromised by washouts, he said. He hopes people continue to drop supplies at The Newtown Bee. He is prepared to do another flight as soon as the supplies accumulate, he said.

Supplies support local aid efforts by the Black River Good Neighbor Services Inc, based in Ludlow. The organization’s website is www.brgn.org.

Mr Kugielsky said, “I want to say thanks to the Newtown folks who donated.”