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October 6, 2025
FOND DU LAC – Karen and Tim Kelley said for them and their five children – Amie, Betsy, Heidi, Molly and Clark – all owners of Oak Lawn Farm, Kelley’s Farmstead and Kelley Country Creamery, few things are more treasured than the freedoms enjoyed in this country.
With a profound respect for the veterans who have safeguarded these freedoms, the family said they have longed to give back.
Around eight years ago, Karen and Tim found a meaningful way to do just that.
“We have friends out in Griswold, Connecticut, who have grown sunflowers on their farm for more than 20 years,” she said. “They’ve raised a few million dollars growing the sunflowers for the Make-a-Wish Foundation.”
Inspired by their success, Karen said she saw an opportunity to create a similar initiative to honor and support veterans in their own community.
“My dad was a veteran, and a lot of my children have friends and their families have been in the service,” she said. “I have a lot of honor and respect for them and want to support them because they sacrifice a lot, and their families sacrifice a lot, to give us the freedom in this country that we take for granted too much.”
Inspired by this, Karen said the family started growing sunflowers to benefit veterans through the Appleton-based nonprofit Old Glory Honor Flight, Inc.
Old Glory Honor Flight
According to oldgloryhonorflight.org, Northeast Wisconsin Old Glory Honor Flight, Inc. was founded in 2009 by a loyal group of Appleton-based volunteers who wanted to do more to serve veterans in the area.
Its mission of “Honoring Our Local Veterans One Mission at a Time” includes all veterans who served in any branch of the U.S. military prior to May 7, 1975.
The flights are completely free of charge to veterans as a way to say “thank you.”
During their day-long trip to Washington, D.C., veterans visit memorials and monuments honoring the wars they served in.
Professional photographers capture these moments, while the D.C. Park Police provide “red carpet” treatment to ensure veterans receive a special and memorable experience.
Every detail of the trip is carefully orchestrated so that the veterans have a “safe, memorable trip, and one that conveys appreciation and admiration from our community,” according to their website.
A volunteer medical team is on board every flight, and each veteran is escorted by a trained volunteer or approved family member or friend who serves as their guardian, “guard” for short, from the time they depart Appleton until they return later that evening.
On the flight home, mail call takes place, where each veteran receives and has a chance to read cards, letters and emails written to them by family, friends, sometimes local school children and others – thanking them for their service.
Upon returning to Appleton later that evening, the flight is greeted by Old Glory staff members or volunteers, loved ones, family members and friends of the vets, as well as members of the public who want to give them the welcome home many of them never received when they returned from war.
“It costs approximately $100,000 for each flight,” Karen said. “When we started doing this, it was closer to $50,000, but it’s really gone up. So, growing sunflowers to help cover some of the expense was something we felt very strongly about doing.”
Karen said she and her husband have twice had the honor of being a Guardian for a vet on a flight and most of her children have been Guardians, as well.
“It is just such a wonderful experience, something that you couldn’t get anywhere else,” she said. “To be with those veterans on that flight that day is better than any history class you could ever take. And the organizers and volunteers at Old Glory Honor Flight are fantastic, and some of the most giving people you’d ever want to meet.”
This year, per the website, Old Glory Honor Flight will make five flights to Washington, D.C., and back, with the fifth one – Old Glory Honor Flight Mission 78 – set for Oct. 28.
More information is available at oldgloryhonorflight.org.
Labor of love for the whole family
The Kelleys said they chose to grow sunflowers for a few reasons.
Though the idea was sparked by friends with experience in sunflower farming, Karen said she personally has always loved the flowers.
She said the family also appreciated the opportunity to use sunflowers as a centerpiece for events raising money for Old Glory Honor Flight’s missions.
“I really liked the sunflowers because nobody else had them back then,” she said. “Now, you see them a little more often than when we first started eight years ago, but you still don’t see them as often as you do other flowers. The ones we grow are just one flower on one stem. I think the colors and the center of them are all just beautiful.”
Each summer, Karen said “Sunflowers Taking Flight” begins with her husband and son planting sunflower seeds throughout a two-acre area they set aside for this event.
“My husband and son buy all the seed, then plant the entire sunflower field, cut paths through the field, [so it’s like a maze], and maintain it to make sure everything is growing properly and that the weeds are cut down,” she said.
Meanwhile, Karen said she and her daughters work to come up with a new design for hats and shirts they sell during the actual “Sunflowers Taking Flight” event – usually held the first week in August, but it depends solely on the growing season.
Typically, Karen said it takes a sunflower 70-100 days to grow from seed to full maturity.
“We’ve tried growing sunflowers a little later in the year, but they don’t grow as well,” she said. “That’s because we don’t have as much sunshine as it gets later in the year, so they don’t blossom as well.”
For the hats and shirts, Karen said they try to stay with the sunflower theme each year and include an Honor Flight plane somehow flying within the design.
“We’ve done something as simple as a sunflower in an ice cream cone with a plane going over it,” she said. “We’ve also done a ring of sunflowers with a plane going through it. We’ve done all kinds of things over the years and have had all different colors of shirts and hats.”
Once they come up with a design, Karen said they work with a company to create a mock-up preview to then be finalized.
‘Sunflowers Taking Flight’
Karen said the “Sunflowers Taking Flight” event takes place over eight to 10 days at the farm located at W5215 County Road B in Fond du Lac.
During that time, she said the public is invited to stroll through the two-acre field filled with hundreds – if not thousands – of sunflowers.
“It’s one thing to see sunflowers – it’s quite another to walk in a huge field of them,” she said. “That’s not something someone gets to do very often.”
Karen said “literally tens of thousands of people visit the farm each year” to navigate the sunflower field’s maze of cut paths.
“Sometimes we have a few thousand people every day who go through it,” she said.
In the center of this year’s maze, Karen said they featured representations of all four military branches alongside an American flag.
Benches were also added this year, she said, so visitors could sit, reflect on the nation’s freedoms or simply take in the surroundings.
“There are also tractors throughout the maze where people can stop and even sit on the tractors – something kids really enjoy – and take a picture amongst the sunflowers,” she said. “There are also bicycles in the maze and a big oak tree in the sunflower field with a swing in it where people can take pictures of themselves or someone else sitting on the swing.”
Adding a touch of fun, Karen said they have sunflower cut-outs where visitors can place their heads and pose as if they were sunflowers.
“A lot of people enjoy taking their pictures there,” she said.
How long it takes to go through the maze, Karen said, depends on what each person wants to do.
“If you just want to go quickly from start to finish, you can probably get through it in 15 minutes or so,” she said. “If you want to take your time and stroll through and look at all the flowers and stop at all the photo op areas, you can spend as much time in there as you want.”
Butterflies are a common sight in the maze, Karen said, which adds to the overall experience.
“It really amazes people, and it’s something people don’t normally see or do,” she said.
In another show of support for the Old Glory Honor Flight mission, Karen said a tent is set up on site where visitors can write thank-you cards or letters to veterans.
“We give those to the Old Glory Honor Flight organization, and they’ll include them in the packets of mail the veterans receive on the flight home [the day of their ‘mission’],” she said.
Some of the veterans who take part in these flights, Karen said, have little or no family remaining, which makes the cards and letters especially meaningful.
Just outside the field, she said a booth is set up where guests can pay for admission and purchase shirts, hats or sunflower bouquets – which are made up of five flowers cut fresh that morning.
“We ask for a donation for everything,” she said. “We don’t take any reimbursement for our part in anything. All the money – for the shirts, hats, sunflowers and admission to the sunflower field maze – is all donated to the Old Glory Honor Flight organization.”
To date, Karen said Kelley Country Creamery has donated $374,761.85 to Old Glory Honor Flight – raising a little more almost every year.
“I think why so many people come to ours [sunflower field event] and support it is because they know ours are grown for the veterans,” she said.
