HELENA — Mending Waters Montana is a non-profit based in Helena that aims to enhance the well-being of military veterans through fishing and boat trips. On May 6th, they received a special donation from Capital High School students.
After many fixings and hundreds of hours of work throughout the school year, August Nelson and other students finished the product, a trailer hitch insert honoring Mending Waters Montana.
“This community has been enormously supportive of everything we've done. This is an example of it,” says Randy Dix, Mending Waters Montana founder. “But it resonates throughout the whole community, through the whole state of Montana to be honest with you. We receive donations that are not even requested."
That is how this donation came to be. Nelson says he created this design in the Fall 2020 semester as a fun hobby. “I'd machine one out and it looked really good and so we showed [Mending Waters] and they said they wanted to order, I think they said they wanted to order 50 of them. We said that was a lot," laughs Nelson, a senior at Capital.
The students were able to create 20 inserts for the organization. They will be sold to help the group serve more vets, a task the students say is a big honor.
“I feel very honored to get to do this for these veterans,” says Nelson. “It's something that I always want to do for them. If you have a chance to do something for your community and anything for the military, I definitely go for it. It's something that makes you feel good on the inside."
The relationship between Mending Waters Montana and the Capital High School students is not over. They are in talks of possibly creating fishing rods for trips during the 2021-2022 school year.
Click here to visit the Mending Waters Montana website.
