Headquartered in St. Cloud MN, Wings of Mercy, Minnesota Inc. (Wings) is a volunteer medical air transportation service in which FAA certified pilots, nurses and other professionals donate their time, planes and expertise in order to transport recipients who are in medical and financial need.

Description:
The Wings of Mercy, Minnesota Inc. program has flown 733 mercy missions from inception through the end of March 2007. 55% of these missions are children. We service the Upper Midwest primarily Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin. Our latest flight into your geographical area was on the 18th of March, 2007. We flew an adult from Bismarck to Rochester for kidney problems.The recipients we fly must prove financial as well as medical need. They are medical patients receiving follow-up care for cancer, surgery, breathing problems or other ailments. All of our recipients have medical insurance.

Our recipients are not able to be transported via van, bus, or train because their bodies simply cannot make it onto the van, bus or train due to pain, body casts, paralysis etc. Further, they or their caregiver have already missed so much work due to the illness that any more time off for the longer trips such as the van, bus or train would put them on the unemployment line, thus losing medical insurance and their standard of living.

Wings is in it’s 12th year of operation because numerous volunteers contribute time, talent and expertise to the organization. We have approximately 35 pilots who fly for us, 22 nurses and the volunteer fundraising/data entry/clerical staff is approximately 55 individuals. All pilots, nurses and other professionals come to Wings already trained and license. Wings pays nothing for storage of planes, maintenance costs, training costs or anything else that is associated with keeping the plane and the pilot current. Our cost for the program is the reimbursement of aviation fuel to the pilot that is consumed during the mission. An average mission reimbursement is approximately $550.00. The pilots pay on average $1700.00 per mission. Wings employs no employees but we do pay an outside part-time Executive Director to direct our fundraising and marketing administrative duties.

History:
Wings is the first chapter of an organization of Wings of Mercy Michigan that was founded by Mr. Peter VandenBosch, a retired businessman in Holland Michigan in 1991. Dr. David Van Nostrand was performing Samaritan surgery as part of the Trelawny Outreach Project when he was made aware of Wings of Mercy Michigan. Intrigued by the organization, Dr. Van Nostrand was given the opportunity to fly numerous mercy missions during the span of one week. He thoroughly enjoyed the experience and came home to St. Cloud and started the Minnesota Chapter of Wings of Mercy. Wings of Mercy, Minnesota Inc. was established and incorporated as a 501(c) 3 organization in January of 1995, flying its first flight also in January of 1995.

Contact people:

Kate Ritzer, Executive Director, (651) 484-7277, (email) Dr. Dave Van Nostrand, President & Founder, (866) 622-6332, (email) Rick Murray, Vice President, (952) 934-6238, (email)

Office fax number: (651) 483-8188

Address:

Box 198 56 Ave. South 33rd Ave. St. Cloud, MN 56301 (See a map)

Web Site: http://www.wingsofmercymn.org

Directions:

Volunteers will need transportation to local airport