May 2018 Club Meeting: Project Healing Waters & “Celebrating Lefty”

By Larry Forte

I hope you can join us at our next monthly meeting on Tuesday, May 8th. We have a fun and busy evening planned for everyone. First, our guest speaker will be David Folkerts, David is the COO of Project Healing Waters (PHW) and we are interested in starting a PHW program at Ft. Detrick. After David’s presentation, we will watch a video presentation about Lefty Kreh created by Dan Neuland.

Project Healing Waters, the National Organization, has over 210 partnership agreements with clubs like ours throughout the US. The organization is dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled active military service personnel and disabled veterans through fly fishing and associated activities. David was one of the first on the staff. Plus, he is a PVFF member.

For the past 5 years, we have been hosting an annual Project Healing Waters event at Otter Camp, near Thurmont, Maryland (MD). The majority of folks that attend are from Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. Right now, there is not a program at Ft. Detrick. Dave and our Board have been talking about starting a PHW’s program at Ft. Detrick.

At our next meeting, David will talk about the program and what’s involved with starting a PHW’s program. My hope is that we can find the club volunteers over the next several months to make this a reality.

Following David’s presentation, we will watch a new presentation called, “Celebrating Lefty”, produced by Dan Neuland that celebrates the life of Lefty Kreh. This will include some cool photos of Lefty when he lived and fishing in the area.

Hope to see you on May 8th!