Skydiving: Chute First, Questions Later?

I’ve always wanted to go skydiving.

The chance to do so for a good cause was something too good to pass up.

On April 17, myself and several other local folks are going to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, and assuming what I’ve been told is true, float down via a parachute and land at the Fayette County Fairgrounds.

It’s all part of Fayette County Habitat for Humanity’s first annual Skydiving Fundraiser.

Myself and the other local folks who are participating, are each being tasked to collect donations totaling $750 dollars – every cent of which is going to Fayette County Habitat for Humanity.

Other folks who have volunteered to do this include:

Craig Moreau

Mel Burgess

Julie Couch

Joe Johnson

Georgina Hudspeth

Melanie Ramirez

Ben Sustr

Marissa Meier

Devan Taylor

Kenny Couch

They are still looking for more folks (20 is the goal) and they are also raffling off some of the jumps spots. You can contact Habitat at: Info@fayettecounty habitat.org.

All of us prospective skydivers were asked by Kenny Couch, the executive director of Fayette County Habitat for Humanity.

When he first asked me via email the first thing I did was to search online about the safety of skydiving.

For tandem skydiving, which is what this will be (skydiving attached to a trained instructor) there have only been 0.002 fatalities per 1,000 jumps, making it more likely to die by being struck by lightening than skydiving.

I could not find any data about the chances of being struck by lightening while skydiving.

My wife, curiously, did not put up any objection to this skydiving plan, so I gave Kenny a hearty, “I’ll do it.”

When I met him for lunch recently to go through some of the other details, Kenny provided me with a Frequently Asked Question sheet, which proved how little I had thought about this.

What does it feel like? That was one of the printed questions.

“During free fall you’ll be flying at 120 miles per hour.”

That seems awfully fast. Other questions included ones about physical requirements (under 250 pounds, be good heath), should I eat beforehand (yes), how hard is the landing (like jumping off a curb).

This entire thing is being done under the direction of Texas Skydiving’s facility in Lexington.

I also learned from Kenny that we’ll have a GoPro camera strapped to us during the jump and we’ll get a video of our jump after it’s all over.

I also learned a lot from Kenny about the Habitat for Humanity program, which has built so many homes for people in this county. Recipients of those homes must contribute hundreds of hours of “sweat equity” assisting volunteers in building their homes. The homeowners then purchase the homes via very low monthly payments, that get put into a fund for the next home to be built.

Here’s some more information on Habitat from Kenny:

“With property values and construction costs increasing faster than wages, Fayette County Habitat’s mission in our community is more important than ever. Luckily our organization continues to expand to meet the growing needs of our community This last year has been one of the most active in our affiliate’s history. We were blessed to partner with Tejas Health Care to provide replacement mobile homes for two Fayette County families. Remodeled the Schulenburg facility of the Boys & Girls Club of Champion Valley and adopted the Hostyn Rest Stop showing that Habitat has many ways to support our community.

As a supporter of Fayette County Habitat’s mission to build a world where everyone has a decent place to call home our goal is to raise $750 from friends, family and other supporters for the opportunity to tandem jump into the Fayette County Fairgrounds on April 17th. Your “leap of faith” will help bring attention to Habitat’s growing mission in our community as well as generate funds for the organization. 100% of the donations you raise will go directly to Fayette County Habitat for Humanity allowing us to continue addressing the housing needs of our community.”

So now the only challenge is for me and all of my fellow skydivers to wrangle up that $750 each. If you know any of those folks reach out to them and please give them a donation. If you wanna send a donation my way, you can send a check made out to Habitat for Humanity to the Record office to my attention (P.O. Box 400, La Grange). But I’d be even more obliged if you’d stop by the Record office personally to donate so we can say our farewells – just in case.