As a kid, Aaron Calvert often passed Mitchell Airport when he’d ride along while his grandma drove his mom to work.
Before long, he could identify planes by the sound of their engines.
Calvert knew he wanted to fly planes, but when he started to pursue it, he was faced with a tough reality: Pilots-in-training at Wisconsin Aviation flight school pay $200 to $300 per flight hour, Calvert said.
He wondered how he would cover flight school when his family already struggled to pay the bills.
“Those factors kind of dampened my interest a little bit,” Calvert said. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to afford to pay tens of thousands of dollars for flight training, and now I’m supposed to go to college too on top of that.”
That reality changed for Calvert as a high school senior, when he won a $25,000 scholarship from Panda Cares, the philanthropic arm of the restaurant chain Panda Express. Other scholarships had covered his Marquette University tuition, but unlike most scholarships, this one could go toward a professional certification.
For Calvert, that meant flight training.
He was one of 15 students in Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide to receive the prestigious scholarship, chosen from more than 500 applicants.
From shy kid to pilot-in-training
Every time Calvert and his mom, Dawn Kaminski, drove past the Mary Ryan Boys & Girls Club in their Sherman Park neighborhood, he wondered what they did.
Late into his freshman year at Marquette University High School, someone at his school recommended Calvert check out the Ready Center, the club’s teen and college hub.
Andre Douglas is assistant vice president of Graduation Plus at the club, an initiative that provides high school students with individualized support. He said Calvert was active in signing up for driver’s education and other activities but was so quiet when he first walked into the center that he asked staff if he talked at all.
“I still deny he was ever shy. I think he was an introvert who became an extrovert,” Douglas said.
Douglas started challenging him to take on public speaking and youth leadership opportunities.
By his junior year of high school, Calvert started pilot lessons through New Beginnings Aerospace Ministry, a Wisconsin nonprofit that engages young students of color in STEM curriculum and provides other support.
As a senior in high school, Calvert was one of two Ready Center candidates for Youth of the Year, the club’s national leadership program, Douglas said. He placed runner-up locally and won scholarship money.
That made him eligible for the $25,000 Panda Cares Scholarship, an award only Youth of the Year participants could apply for.
‘That’s a Cessna… that’s a 727’
Anna Vang, Calvert’s girlfriend, lives near Timmerman Airport on the city’s Northwest Side. With her window open, Calvert could name the planes flying nearby without seeing them.
“He goes, ‘That’s a Cessna … that’s a 727,’” Vang said. “I’m like, how do you know? We’re inside the house?”
Charles Allen, a retired Air Force pilot who founded New Beginnings Aerospace Ministry to get Milwaukee students of color into aviation, paid for Calvert’s first flight hours.
Calvert said that only 3% to 4% of U.S. pilots are Black.
Allen’s ministry covered the initial part of Calvert’s training for his private pilot’s license. For a couple of weeks after that funding ended, Carver was paying for flight hours out of his own pocket.
“I saw some of those invoices hit my bank account. I felt a hole in my heart,” Calvert said.
Now, he has about 60 flight hours logged, 20 to 30 of them solo. He expects to earn his private pilot’s license within a month or two.
While he continues his pilot schooling, he’s pursuing a business degree at Marquette University.
Calvert chose business because it would open other career paths, in case something like a medical disqualification ends his flying career.
The scholarships he didn’t know existed
Calvert almost didn’t apply for the Panda Cares Scholarship, worried the university would take the excess money back.
Douglas showed Calvert that he could use the money for professional certification, which meant flight training.
Kaminski said learning about resources available locally was crucial in helping her son move toward his goal of flying through the Panda Cares Scholarship.
“If it wasn’t for the Grad Plus program, Aaron wouldn’t have known to apply,” Kaminski said.
Calvert said he passed the Mary Ryan Boys & Girls Club for years without knowing the opportunities it held for him and others.
“It’s just amazing how many people don’t know about these programs,” Calvert said. “I’ll tell people near me at home, you should do this because they can literally shape you.”
Calvert said his advice to students in the position he was in a year ago is simple.
“Know that there’s resources out there that want to give back to you,” he said. “You just have to do your part in putting in the effort to have those resources see you, because they’re there.”
Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
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