Local small business, Edwards Airman demonstrate the gift of giving

  • Published
  • By Jet Fabara
  • 412th Test Wing Public Affairs
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  For a group of students at Desert High School who are part of the wrestling program, not only are they learning the intricacies of the sport but a valuable life lesson - the manner of giving is worth more than the gift.

On Jan. 21, the DHS wrestling team was surprised with a donation of warm-up uniforms for the entire team courtesy of INQU, LLC, a local Women Owned, Service Disabled Veteran Owned small business that provides engineering and support services to Edwards Air Force Base and the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.

"This school has been really good to our family with all three of our kids who attended and graduated from DHS over the years. Both of our boys wrestled and participated in many other sports as well when they attended school here and our daughter played tennis here as well," said Ray Wilkens, INQU president. "It was our opportunity to give back to the community that has been so good to our family both through the Air Force and the high school. It was also important to us that we provide some things that were needed for the kids to compete and feel great about their school spirit in order to boost morale."

"Desert [High School] has an awesome athletic program here that truly depends on its volunteers and community," added Lori Wilkens INQU, LLC CEO. "Hopefully this gives them hope that the sports program here will continue on."

Prior to the team's practice, Ray and Lori Wilkens were both on hand to present the uniforms to the team's head coach, Tech. Sgt. Andrew Martz, who is assigned to the 412th Flight Test Squadron and volunteers his time with the DHS wrestling team.

"I've worked with Ray in the past and I mentioned that we are always looking for local sponsorship and he responded with what we needed," Martz said. "We really appreciate their willingness to help their local community and the kids in this program. Every year we've always struggled with uniforms because we've asked parents to purchase warm ups and they end up not matching, but this year thanks to INQU's donation we'll have a set of warm ups that we'll give to the kids before each event and this, in turn, will provide a confidence and morale booster."

According to Martz, since there are five self-funded sporting teams at DHS and the wrestling team is one of them, the programs really depend on the help of the donations from the local community.

"Without the help of donations, local volunteers and companies like INQU, it's really tough to keep things going, since you can only have so many fundraisers. We try to reach out to our community as much as possible to see how they can help us and how we can help them in turn," said Martz. "Even if you have spare time to volunteer, just call the school, there are tons of programs that can use your help. From their music programs to the robotics club, they all thrive with the help of volunteers."

In addition to volunteering with the DHS wrestling team, Martz and his wife also coach the youth soccer team on base every year for the past 3 years and are in the process of developing a youth wrestling program for the local community called the Desert Wrestling Club where children ages six and up can participate.

"Since I took over this program three years ago, our goal is to make wrestling to be a no-fee sport; we don't want it to be a pay-to-play type program because we want it to be fully accessible to everybody regardless of the student's family income," Martz said.

According to Martz, the team has one more tournament at Victor Valley High School in Victorville, Calif., and then the league tournament begins to see who advances into the post season.

"We have a relatively young program, but the team has truly surpassed my expectations with a six-win streak for dual meets," added Martz. "At this point, we're just getting ready for post season; looking forward to see how everyone does and hopefully advance even further."

To find out more information about upcoming DHS wrestling team events, search for their Facebook page called Friends of Desert Wrestling.

To volunteer or assist with any of the self-funded programs at DHS, call (760) 769-4821.