OPA LOCKA – By the year 2012, Experience Aviation (EA) plans to have inspired more than a million young people to achieve their dreams. Many of these youth, like Barrington Irving, grew up in the inner city with little hope for a professional career.
Barrington’s own life changed when, at 15 years old, he met Captain Gary Robinson, an airline pilot who cared enough to spend time with him and encourage him to achieve something he first thought impossible. With his guidance Barrington pursued an aviation career and in June, 2007, he became the youngest person and the first black pilot to fly solo around the world.
What motivated him throughout my 25,000-mile journey was the thought that more than 100,000 youth were tracking my flight. Following Captain Robinson’s example, I too became a role model and mentor for other young people who could see that if I could achieve my dream, they could too!
Experience Aviation, the nonprofit organization Irving founded in 2003, is his way of expanding his role as mentor on a national scale. At the EA Learning Center in Miami, the goal is to inspire young people to identify and achieve their own dreams through dynamic aviation education programs designed to build math, science and reading skills.
Barrington Irving’s return to Opa Locka
Photo by: Infinte Markets
To support this and other aviation education programs, and to honor his historic flight, a Resolution was passed in the House of Representatives on December 11, 2007 (www.southfloridacaribbeannews.com/story.asp?ID=3075).
Through his website (www.experienceaviation.org) and the extensive media coverage of his historic flight, Barrington Irving has already touched many thousands of lives, many of them children and youth.
Barrington in Dubai, one of his stops during his historic flight
Help make the dream possible
With your contribution of $50, it will enable one student to participate in EA after-school programs, including simulated flight; $100 will send a student to the weekend mini-course, “Charting a Flight Plan for Life”; $150 will give a student the opportunity to construct an aircraft in our “Build and Fly” program; and any amount will help develop these and other exciting initiatives including a Virtual Online Learning Program.
To make your tax-deductible donation, please log on to our website, www.experienceaviation.org or mail it to Experience Aviation, Inc, 15001 NW 42nd Avenue, Opa-locka, FL 33054.
To join the Experience Aviation Volunteer Team or to become a Program Sponsor, e-mail Barrington at, [email protected].
According to Barrington, “with your support, we can shock the world by helping students become extra-ordinary and realize their dreams”!
