Tami Burns, EAA 799426, from Almond, Wisconsin, started volunteering at the North 40 camping registration station in 2009. She soon decided that it really wasn’t what she wanted to do, saying it felt too much like what she did for her real job. But the next year, she stumbled upon the aircraft greeters, began volunteering with them, and is now their lead co-chair.
“I just really fell in love with just being out in the field and being around the airplanes and meeting the pilots and making a whole new group of friends that you only see once a year.”
Tami attended AirVenture with her husband for many years prior to that and always thought it would be really cool to volunteer somewhere on the grounds.
“I saw that there was an opportunity to be there, and it sounded like fun, and we had made some friends that actually come up every year and camp there in the North 40,” she said. “So I just thought it would be fun to actually be there on the grounds all the time and be a part of the event somehow.”
Tami had been trying to convince her family to volunteer with her, so when her son Nick got a little bit older and became available to help out, she recruited him. Nick started volunteering with Tami in 2018, and they have been doing it together ever since.
Nick has recently been growing the Burns family legacy at AirVenture by bringing his children to enjoy parts of the show. At 2 years, 22 months, and 10 months, he’s introducing them to aviation at very young ages.
As an aircraft greeter himself, Nick said that he was always interested in the international pilots, “especially the ones from Europe that fly their small aircraft from Germany or England or even some from the Central American countries,” he said. The fact that they fly thousands and thousands of miles to come to AirVenture really stuck out to him.
Nick said that since there are so many different volunteer opportunities, you can find an area where you’d like to volunteer, so you should try to do it with those you love.
“With the variety of areas that you could work in … anybody can find something to do that they would enjoy doing,” Nick said.
Volunteering has become a family affair for the Burnses, and now a big group of them camp together in Camp Scholler, which Tami said has only enriched their experience as volunteers.
Volunteering for a cause is always important, but doing it with family makes it that much more special.