Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing
Our May program will feature Rick Trowbridge, Southern Region Coordinator for Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing. Rick is coming to introduce PHWFF to our club and to help us get our own program off the ground. PHWFF programs are as unique as the people and organizations that sponsor them. We will tailor a program that best reflects the talents of our membership with the needs and desires of the wounded veterans and active military personnel that wish to participate in Wichita's chapter of PHWFF.
Other PHWFF chapters have put on casting clinics, fly tying classes, rod building classes, fishing outings and even built boats side by side with the military participants. This is an exciting road we have started down and I look forward to sharing the experience with all of you.
PHWFF Mission Statement:
Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, INC. (PHWFF) was founded in 2005 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC), with the help of local Trout Unlimited (TU) and Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF) volunteers. Our mission: Assist in the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled active duty military personnel and veterans through fly fishing and fly tying education and outings.
PHWFF provides basic fly fishing, fly casting, and fly tying instruction for wounded personnel, ranging from beginners to those with prior fly fishing experience, who are adapting their skills to their new abilities. While initially focused on military personnel in the Washington, DC area, PHWFF has expanded and is offering its services to active military personnel and veterans in military and Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals across the nation. Currently, over 70 such pro-grams have been established in the U.S. and Canada.
Since its inception, PHWFF has been helping disabled active duty personnel and veterans to over-come the obstacles associated with their military ser-vice-related disabilities. The relearning of the fine mo-tor skills required in fly fishing and fly tying has proven to be particularly effective in the overall rehabilitation of the disabled.
While PHWFF emphasizes the skills of fly fishing and fly tying to help the patients regain the use of their damaged bodies, perhaps the greatest benefit is in their realization that a more normal life is possible. Fly fishing can be a lifelong re-creation, both physically and emotionally.
PHWFF partners directly with fly fishing oriented organizations such as the FFF and TU. Within local clubs and chapters, volunteers, working with hospital staff, donate their time to teach the various skills involved in the sport of fly fishing to Project participants. PHWFF, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity incorporated in the State of Maryland, is dependent on tax-deductible financial donations and the help of numerous volunteers to meet the educational, training, equipment, transportation, and related outing needs of the participants. PHWFF strives to effectively serve its deserving participants, who have made great sacrifices in the ser-vice of our Nation.
The May Program promises to be an interesting, important and fulfilling evening, please mark your calendars and we hope to see you there! www.projecthealingwaters.org