FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

North Bay Honor Flight is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and a member of the National Honor Flight Network. Established in 2023, North Bay Honor Flight (NBHF) serves more than 52,500 veterans from the Northern California counties of Sonoma, Napa, Marin, Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt, Del Norte, and Trinity.

North Bay Honor Flight is open to veterans from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam era conflicts. We are honored to welcome disabled veterans as well as critically ill veterans honored by the Honor Flight TLC program. Every veteran deserves this recognition and gratitude.

Mark your calendar for Mission One: Inaugural Honor Flight and Home Coming April 2025 North Bay’s Inaugural Honor Tour will depart April 28, 2025 and return April 30, 2025 to a huge Home Coming.

Our Inaugural Flight has been a long time in the planning with many people’s effort, sweat, blood, and tears to show for it. Without our volunteers, we wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t have this paper I am writing on — hell we wouldn’t even have a website! — so when we talk about appreciation and gratitude and debt, that extends to and includes our North Bay Honor Flight volunteers, without whom, we could not have pulled this off. But we can’t put the cart before the horse! 114 more days until showtime! It’s not over ‘til it’s over!
- Mission CO

Many veterans from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam never received the welcome home they deserved. By providing them with this unique opportunity to visit their memorials, we express our profound gratitude for their sacrifices and service. It's a chance to bring our bravest heroes closure, healing, and recognition.

There are several ways to get involved and support our mission:

Donate: Our mission success relies on the generosity of our community, both public and private donors, to fund Honor Flights. We are a 100% volunteer organization with 95% of every dollar going directly toward providing this experience to our local veterans; we receive no government financial support. There are many ways to support financially at our Donate link or  In Honor Of  at the Wall of Honor link.

Volunteer: We are always seeking dedicated volunteers to assist with our operations. Whether you are available to help organize events or assist on the day of an Honor Flight, your time and effort are greatly appreciated. Please fill out an application at the Volunteer Application link.

Spread the Word: Share our mission with your friends, family, and community. Follow us on Facebook to stay updated on our activities and events.

If you'd like to nominate a veteran for an upcoming Honor Flight, please contact us directly via email or U.S postal mail. We'd love to discuss the nomination process and help make this experience possible for your chosen veteran. For more information on this question or any others, reach out to [hidden]or [hidden].

Guardian Overview

Guardians are essential to the success of the Honor Flight Network Program and without whom, Honor Flight chapters would not be able to fulfill our mission of enabling veterans to visit Washington, D.C. war memorials and monuments built in their honor.

While on this three-day Honor Tour, from the moment the veterans are entrusted to North Bay Honor Flight until we return them safely to their families, we ask that guardians treat the veterans with utmost respect while attending to their needs, ensuring that every veteran has a safe, memorable, and rewarding experience.

Please read more about what to expect from the guardian experience in the following Guardian FAQ.

Guardian FAQ

You need to pay for your trip. The current cost is $1,800 which covers air and ground transportation, meals, lodging, entrance fees, and t-shirts.

If you are a family member of a veteran you must be 18 years of age or older. You cannot be a veteran’s spouse or significant other and be a guardian on the same flight. If you are not a family member, you must be 18 years of age or older. You can also be a veteran yourself, but on this trip, your role is that of the guardian for your specific veteran. On another future trip, you may fly as a veteran, having earned that honor and privilege.

Your responsibility on the trip is to assist your veteran with whatever they need, which may include pushing your veteran in a transport chair up to seven — ten miles during a single day.

You must be in good physical health, have good eyesight and hearing, be able to walk — including on an incline — up/down stairs, up/down escalators, and be able to lift 80 lbs.

14-7 days before the trip there will be mandatory guardian training (in some cases the training may be virtual) that you must attend in order to go on the trip. If you do not attend the training, your veteran will be matched with another guardian.

You will be a member of a team of guardians physically helping veterans get on and off the buses; you will help load equipment on and off the buses; you will be part of a “bucket brigade” so you will need to be agile, mobile, and able to squat.

Yes, if a veteran doesn’t have a family member or friend as their guardian, we welcome volunteer guardians who have submitted an application. Non-family member guardians must be 18 years of age or older.

Apply Online Here

NOTE: by submitting an application you aren’t committing to going on a specific trip (unless your veteran has already been selected and confirmed for their flight) and it isn’t a guarantee that you will be selected to be a guardian on the next trip.

In most cases guardians are family members (children or grandchildren, siblings) of the veteran. Spouses and significant others of the veteran are not eligible to be guardians.

If there is no family member or friend of the veteran available to go as a guardian, we reach out to volunteer guardians (folks who have volunteered to accompany any veteran on his/her Honor Tour).

Volunteer guardians are interviewed by the NBHF Guardians Director to ensure they are a good fit with the Honor Veteran before they are chosen.

Each veteran is required to be paired with a guardian, therefore, guardians are contacted from the volunteer wait list until every veteran on an Honor Tour is paired.

You will remain on the list and we will contact you when we start planning the next trip.

When you apply online you will get a confirmation email indicating that your application was received.

Your application is kept on file until you tell us to remove it. Any time you want to be removed from our list of possible guardians email us at [hidden].

Once you are chosen to go as a Guardian

We will contact you via the contact information on your application.

North Bay Honor Flight’s Inaugural flight is scheduled for April 28, 2025. We are collecting guardian flight payments in January 2025.

We are proud to use Zeffy.com built for nonprofit organizations to process on-line payments which does not charge credit card fees so please feel free to use your credit card. We also accept personal checks.

Once you are chosen to go on a trip you will receive a letter from us outlining the process. Several weeks before the trip we will check in again to make sure you are still available and to communicate new, changed, or additional information including list of items to bring with you, flight show time, flight return time, contact phone numbers to leave with your friends/family to get ahold of the Honor Tour Mission Commander in D.C., etc.

Yes. 14-7 days before the trip there will be mandatory guardian training (in some cases the training may be virtual) that you must attend in order to go on the trip.

We depart from Santa Rosa, CA airport and fly to Washington, D.C. on the first day. The next two days are spent visiting war memorials, military service branch memorials, and monuments, via chartered bus. At the end of the third day we fly home, arriving in the early evening to a Welcome Home celebration. The Welcome Home celebration is extremely important and is integral to the Honor Tour. General public, first responders, community leaders, friends, family, and local veterans and veteran organizations are invited and strongly encouraged to attend.

Hotel rooms have double queen beds. You will most likely be staying with your veteran unless you are not a family member and of the opposite gender. If you are not sharing a room with your veteran you will be sharing with another guardian.

The guardian donation fee pays all your air and ground transportation, meals, lodging, entrance fees, and t-shirts. Any incidentals such as souvenirs you will pay for.

Unfortunately no, airline Frequent Flier miles cannot be used.

No, Honor Tour seat assignments are made by the Mission Commander with all members of the Honor Tour seated together on the flight.