NEWS & STORIES
Disabled veterans in Pennsylvania relish the challenge of building fly rods
Glenn Klinger, Program Lead of our Harrisburg-East, Pennsylvania program, shares a few pictures and short synopsis of his programs involvement in the 2019 Rod Building Program and Competition below.
You can stay up-to-date with the Harrisburg, PA program by connecting with them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Project-Healing-Waters-Harrisburg-PA-204646036535725/
The Rod Building Program and Competition wouldn’t be possible without all those volunteers who contribute their time, talents, and expertise to provide a meaningful and therapeutic experience for our Nation’s disabled veterans and the tremendous support of the Bob Woodruff Foundation and an NFL-BWF partnership to provide a “Healthy Lifestyles and Creating Community.”
Our 2019 rod building competition was a great success, our participants look forward to this competition every year.
2018 was our programs first year of competing and it has really gained a lot of interest with our participants.
The Harrisburg East program is very fortunate to have two volunteers that are experienced rod builders , Nathan Wisniewski and Seth Clark.
Last year Nathan led the rod building program and was a great instructor, our participants learned a lot from him and This year we added Seth Clark to the team to assist Nathan and it has worked out great having 2 volunteers to assist participants in the rod building.
Participants that where building rods for the competition met twice a month to work on their rods and where free to contact Nathan or Seth at anytime thru the process while they where working on their rods at home.
We had 10 participants building rods this year and our participants built some truly amazing rods . One in particular that really stands out was built by Participant Gregory Bozovich in that he did a custom American Flag wrap on the butt section of his rod that is amazing! This was the second rod Greg has ever built and to take on and complete something so challenging as this custom wrap was incredible. Greg spent a lot of time perfecting those Flag wraps .
The rod building is now something we offer to our participants year round.
We are truly grateful to the Bob Woodruff Foundation for supporting our participants and supplying the rod kits for them, it has opened another door for our participants to engage in such a activity and they are very proud of the rods they build.
We are looking forward to the 2020 competition, our participants are getting better each year and we hope to see one of our own in the winners circle very soon!
Now in its 11th year, the Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing National Fly Rod Building Competition is focused on expanding the therapeutic experience for PHWFF disabled veteran participants by giving them the experience of building their own fly rods to further their physical and mental rehabilitation through the sport of fly fishing. It also has a fun competition component which gives participants the chance to win prizes for their rod building abilities.