Please do the following:
1) To ensure it is not against the law for your area:
a) Call EPA for your state
b) Call city hall and see if there are any city ordinances prohibiting the
relase of balloons
c) You may need to call the FAA
d) And/or, you may need to call call the Public Utilities Commission
2) You are encouraged to let off a balloon for at least your own POW/MIA's,
even if yours isn't from that state.
Get in touch with the Mayor's office who will either tell you what you need
to do or who to contact. We would like for the launches to be a part of the
celebration, preferably during the speeches where all of the attention will
be focused on the podium.
A great source of help will be your local VVA or VFW. Enlist their help if
you can. So far, local groups have been very willing to help out.
For the ceremony: Write a short statement about the balloon launch. Come
from the heart on this one. If you don't have that many balloons to release,
think about doing a Roll Call of Names...Name, date missing, hometown. If
you have a lot of balloons to release, a Roll Call may not be feasible. The
short statement will be better.
Above all else...this needs to make a HUGE impact. Again, come from the heart.
Speak not only for yourself, but for the missing and their families.
1. Contact your local Vietnam Veteran's Group and ask them for their assistance
in getting your balloon launch to be a part of the Memorial Day celebrations.
It helps to have them on board as it will give you a lot of credit in the
eyes of those planning the celebrations.
2. Create a Press Release to inform the newspapers and radio stations in
your town.
3. Tell all of your friends, neighbors, co-workers and family that you are
going to be doing this and ask if they would like to help out with the
balloons...especially if you are going to be launching a lot of
balloons.
We would like to ask that you use pure natural latex black colored balloons
to represent the POW/MIA's from the Vietnam War. To represent POW/MIA's from
other wars such as World War II, Korean War, etc., try using colors such
as blue, orange, yellow.
To get your supplies:
Contact your local party suppy store or rental store. (In my town, I have
A-1 Rentals.) You can get your helium from them. Most party stores now sell
disposable helium tanks for between $20 and $30, or you can rent tanks. Talk
to them about what you are going to be doing and see if you can get them
to donate what you need, especially if you are going to be launching a lot
of balloons. There is no problem with saying that your balloon launch is
being 'brought to you by" your supply store.
Visit the state pages listed to get the bio's. These biographies of the
individual POW/MIA's will be rolled up and put INSIDE the balloon before
they are blown up.
