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Our mission is to credibly represent Navy and Marine Corps aviation. So, we've kind
of had to adapt because we're not flying the demonstration any more.
This is an opportunity for us to focus our energy on Pensacola, the roots of where we've
grown up essentially. We've been here for many decades, and they give us so much, this
community. We've been focusing on community relations; we've been visiting schools and
hospitals, and trying to continue to inspire young men and women just by interacting with
them up close. We've been doing Habitat 4 Humanity, beautification projects around the
city, highway clean-up. Any opportunity we have to give back to this tremendous community
that we call home is what we're focusing on. Normally during the show season we don't get
an opportunity to visit our own schools in the Pensacola area because we're so busy and
we're on the road every week. Now's a great opportunity to do that and we're capitalizing
on the ability to be local and to reach out into our own community. This is our hometown.
We're the home team of Pensacola. So to get out and reach those folks and meet those folks
that we don't normally get to see is fantastic. The community shows us so much support and
I think it's really a larger impact on us. So I think everybody loves to serve in some
capacity. It's a special opportunity and there hasn't really been an opportunity like this
ever. So it's very special. We've done as much as we possibly could in
the local community and I think we're making a huge impact by doing so. As a team, I feel
like we've become even stronger because when we're on the road and we go from show site
to show site, we only take a portion of the team. Here, we're working day in, day out
with the entire team, so we get to interact with everyone and we get to bond and become
a closer team than we normally would have. Overall, I think we're probably better off
for it, and I think it's really going to help us for next season.
I think every team is faced with a unique challenge of some sort, and this has been
our unique challenge, and it's forced us to look at different was to execute our mission.
When doing things like that, you end up continuing to gel and I think our team is just as close
as we would be if we were flying airshows around the country. But it's giving us an
opportunity to explore different ways to reach out and inspire young men and women.