To All Parents of 872 Squadron Cadets

As you are most certainly aware, we offer an extremely active program for our cadets. We firmly believe that the program should be accessible to all youth who are willing to commit to the program, regardless of their family's financial position. As an organization, we strongly believe in universal access and as such, there are no required fees for participating.

That being said, there still are substantial operational costs to being able to offer the program. On average, our annual operational expenses work out to about $450/cadet. This covers a wide variety of expenses including insurance; glider and tow plane operations and maintenance; facilities rental for the school, the community centre for drill team, the hall for annual parade, camp rental for two weekend training exercises, and occasional activities; transportation to specific events; mess dinner subsidies; year end event; and parties (eg Halloween, Christmas, and year end). Considering the sizeable number of activities, training, and life skills development realized, the operational costs of this program are very reasonable and I challenge anyone to find a richer environment for less cost.

A small portion of the cost to the squadron of offering the program, less than 25%, is covered by the Canadian Armed Forces. However, the Canadian Forces also provide the uniforms on loan to the squadron, cover the complete costs of running the summer camps, as well as provide training, and provide a token remittance to the staff responsible for running the core training program. This leaves the fund raising efforts coordinated by the sponsoring committee and conducted by parents such as yourselves to cover the balance of the operational costs, approx $350/cadet/year, required to keep the program viable.

We ask that your cadets participate in the fund raising activities whenever possible. Their participation levels are recorded and do come into consideration when looking at camp placement as well as in other merit selection.

As part of our operating budget, we do ask for a voluntary contribution of $75 per cadet per year to at least offset the annual per cadet costs levied against the squadron for insurance, league level administration, as well as aircraft maintenance. As a donation to a charitable organization, we provide tax receipts for these contributions. Payments may be made at the canteen on Wednesday nights, online below, or hand delivered to any committee member (payable in whole or in part to 872 Air Cadet Squadron).

If for some reason, you are not able to cover the requested annual donation, there are a multitude of other ways that you could contribute, either by your cadets taking extra involvement on fund raising events or by volunteering some of your time – every bit helps.

If you are able to provide or solicit items for one of the two auctions during the year, that would also help. If you could put us in touch with corporate sponsors that could provide ongoing support to the organization, that would have long lasting benefit. If you could help find ways of lowering operational costs, that too would be greatly beneficial.

As the group responsible for the finances for the squadron, the Parent Sponsoring Committee is always open to suggestions and we certainly welcome any help you can offer.

872 Kiwanis Kanata Air Cadet Squadron
Parent Sponsoring Committee Chair

________________________________

To Submit the Voluntary Contribution for your Cadet/s enter their name/s below and click Add to Cart, adjust the quantity in the cart to reflect # of cadets, then update your total.

Enter the Cadet/s Name/s