AUBURN – Amateur pilots will offer free airplane rides to kids next month, part of an effort to encourage interest in flying.

The Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport will host Junior Fly Day on June 14. The program is offered by the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Young Eagles of Maine, based in Bowdoinham.

“It’s amazing the kind of things it opens for young people,” said Everett Perkins, a member of the group and one of the Fly Day organizers.

The national Experimental Aircraft Association is dedicated to building, repairing and flying small aircraft. It’s designed to encourage children and young adults to become pilots themselves some day.

Junior Fly Day will bring local pilots to the Auburn airport for the day. The national group pays for insurance; the pilots donate their time, expertise and aircraft and provide their own fuel.

But it’s free to the young passengers.

“The national association hosts these days around the country,” Perkins said. “They really encourage the local chapters to do it every couple of years.”

It’s the first time the Auburn airport has hosted the event. Pilots flew out of Wiscasset last October.

“It’s mainly aimed at kids who may not get an opportunity to fly,” Perkins said. “This one year, we had a little girl and the look on her face was pretty apprehensive, at least when she was getting on. But her face was entirely different when she was getting off. It was just a short trip up, but it turned her around.”