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Double your donation's impact

Donate before August 31 to the 2020 You Can Fly Challenge

Help build a stronger pilot community by introducing a new generation to aviation careers, improving flight training, making flying more affordable, and getting more pilots back in the air. You can do all of that by donating to the AOPA Foundation’s 2020 You Can Fly Challenge before August 31.

Guest pilots Jane and John Dyer talk about aviation with students at Greenville Technical Charter High School, a South Carolina high school utilizing the AOPA Foundation You Can Fly High School Aviation STEM Curriculum, in Greenville, South Carolina. Photo by David Tulis.

The Ray Foundation will match donations by August 31 dollar for dollar up to $2.5 million.

The You Can Fly program, funded by donations to the AOPA Foundation, is directly growing aviation through its four initiatives: High School, Flight Training, Flying Clubs, and Rusty Pilots.

Here’s a snapshot of the progress You Can Fly has made already this year.

High School initiative

  • You Can Fly STEM curriculum is provided free of charge to 417 schools and 450 classrooms nationwide.
  • Launched eleventh-grade STEM curriculum, adding to ninth- and tenth-grade curriculums already in schools.
  • More than 8,300 students are learning from the curriculum; 25 percent of the students are female and 51 percent minorities.
  • Awarded $1 million total in flight training scholarships to 80 high school students and 20 teachers.

Flight Training initiative

  • Testing the AOPA Flight Training Advantage app, which will allow flight instructors to personalize lesson planning for student pilots and let students track their progress during training.
  • Encouraging community during the coronavirus pandemic by highlighting positive stories from the flight training community.

Flying Clubs initiative

  • Total of 150 new flying clubs nationwide.
  • Shifted from delivering in-person flying club seminars and workshops to online webinars during the coronavirus pandemic.

Rusty Pilots initiative

  • Helped pilots knock off the rust by offering online Rusty Pilots Seminars during the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly 1,200 people have attended the webinars.
  • Helped 706 rusty pilots get back in the air.

With tremendous progress made so far in 2020, the You Can Fly program continues to push forward to accomplish its long-term goals of reaching 10,000 high school students a year with its curriculum, reducing the student pilot dropout rate and reaching 10,000 flight training students through the AOPA Flight Training Advantage app, growing the number of pilots in the AOPA Flying Club Network to more than 10,000, and getting 15,000 lapsed pilots back in the air.

With a proven track record, you can be confident that your donation to the 2020 You Can Fly Challenge will have a direct impact on growing the pilot population, helping to preserve general aviation for generations to come.

Donate by August 31 to have your tax-deductible gift doubled by the Ray Foundation!

Alyssa J. Miller

Alyssa J. Cobb

The former senior director of digital media, Alyssa J. Cobb was on the AOPA staff from 2004 until 2023. She is a flight instructor, and loves flying her Cessna 170B with her husband and two children. Alyssa also hosts the weekly Fly with AOPA show on the AOPA Pilot Video YouTube channel.
Topics: AOPA Foundation, You Can Fly

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