MISSOULA — ’Tis the fundraising season for the Western Montana Santa Flyover.
The organization is collecting donations for the annual holiday tradition: flying Santa and his reindeer around the Missoula Valley by helicopter.
Santa’s flight was a Missoula holiday staple in the 90s and early 2000s until the sleigh stopped flying in 2004. Then in 2020, 16 years later, Brian and Lynn Lease worked with others to put Santa back in the sky.
“My wife and I both were born here in Missoula, lived our whole lives here, and it was something we both missed from our own childhood,” said Brian Lease, an administrator and volunteer with Western Montana Santa Flyover. “During the COVID-19 crisis, my wife and I really wanted to give something back to the community at large, and especially the kids.”
Western Montana Santa Flyover works as a nonprofit with the Missoula Downtown Foundation. All donations go towards flight costs, display improvements and maintenance and can be made on Western Montana Santa Flyover’s website.
“Obviously, everyone who gives donations can feel like a part of this too, 'cause we absolutely appreciate every bit that goes into this. We look forward to taking this thing way out into the future,” said Lease.
The exact date Santa will take to the skies this December depends on the weather. Check the Western Montana Santa Flyover Facebook page to stay updated.
“Being able to bring it back for this generation and seeing how much positivity there is around it and that it's just something that is universally loved is huge,” Lease said. “It means so much to us that we get to do this. It means a lot that we were embraced the way we were.”
KPAX Archive: 1999 Santa Flies Over Missoula
