Charitable Flying

One of the things I've wanted to ever since I got my license (probably actually before) was to do something meaningful with it.  Ever since I first heard about Angel Flight it has been something I've wanted to do.  I don't own my own plane, but I really like the idea of flying folks who need to go a distance for medical reasons or to help fly supplies after a natural disaster.  (Okay, if I'm the winner of tomorrow evening's $207M MegaMillions drawing, one of things I'm going to do after paying off the credit cards, the house, and the kids school loans, is buy myself a plane, probably a Diamond DA40XLS, but I digress).  The interesting thing about the various charitable flying organizations is that they all have different requirements of the pilots.  To fly for Angel Flight Central (that covers most of the upper midwest), you have to have 500 hours including 250 hours of pilot-in-command (PIC) time or a commercial license, instrument rating desired, but not required.  For Angel Flight East (AFE), which includes OH, you need 300 hours total time and an instrument rating (although you can fly as co-pilot without an instrument rating).  For Volunteer Pilots (VPA), you need 200 hours PIC time for VFR ops or 250 hours PIC time and an instrument rating to fly IFR for them.  All of them have some requirement for time in type of aircraft to be used for the operation.  As you can see from the little block to the right, I don't currently qualify to fly for any of them.  I have 196.1 hours total, 139.3 hours PIC.  So, I'm a minimum of 60.7 hours from being able to do this, but it is something that I feel is important and I want to take advantage of the opportunity I have been given by giving something back.  Unfortunately, 60 hours is an awful long time given the rate that I've been racking them up the last few years.  I got lots of hours in right after I got my license, but for the last few years, I've had to cut back mostly because of $$$$$.  With 2 kids in college, it is kind of difficult to justify spending the money to fly, but I will get there.  As soon as I get to that magic 200 hours PIC, the application is going in to Volunteer Pilots.  I may also look into volunteering in some capacity other than actually flying with either (or both) of AFE or VPA.  This is something I feel like I'm supposed to be doing, I just have to figure out how to do it.  By the way, any pilots out there know this, but any non-pilots reading this may not, did you know that you can fly people for money with fewer hours than you can fly people for a charitable contribution?  You can get a commercial license with 250 hours, but you must have (since the new regulations went into effect last year) 500 hours to make a flight in which the passenger donates money to a charity in return for the flight.  Strange, but true.