Kids treated to flight from the past

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Eight children will be the kings of classroom show and tell for months.

While their class-mates can speak of bike rides and visits from distant uncles, these kids will talk about riding on a plane from the distant past.

The opportunity for the children to get airborne on a 60-year-old Lockheed 10A "Electra" was made possible through a special Air Canada program and a generous donation from an international company with main offices in Edmonton.

The old plane, which was one of the four-plane fleet of Trans-Canada Airlines (the forerunner of Air Canada) in the late 1930s was in Edmonton from Sept. 4 to 7 to help raise funds for Dreams Take Flight, a totally volunteer, Air Canada employee-driven program allowing disadvantaged children the opportunity to visit Disney World or Disneyland for a day.

At a cost of $100 per seat, half hour trips over Edmonton were arranged by the Dreams Take Flight organizers to raise money and help offset some costs of the annual trip to see Mickey and Minnie.

One of those flights was paid for fully by Saville Systems.

The international company, with offices located world-wide, including Edmonton, is a multi-million corporation which creates billing stystems for providers in the telecommunications industry.

Company founder Bruce Saville, who is also one of the newest owners of the Edmonton Oilers, purchased all nine seats on board the plane for an afternoon flight. He then told Dreams Take Flight Organizers to find some children to occupy the seats.

Tom Hutchison, project director for Dreams Take Flight said the contribution was very generous and very kind. Most companies would have paid to send their own employees, not a bunch of kids.

"This is so good. This is what it's all about," Hutchison said, as he watched the large silver plane taxi down the runway, it's small round windows filled with the grinning faces of the children. "This is a memory they'll have for the rest of their lives."

Stuart Palace, the vice president of research and development with Saville said the company couldn't have asked for a better way to spend their donation.

"I don't think there was any option," he said as he watched the children jump from the last step of the boarding stairs back onto the tarmac of the Municipal Airport.

The Dreams Take Flight program is very important to the community and to disadvantaged children, Palace said, and helping to raise some funds and awareness is important to the company.

"It's nice to help raise some money, but if you can raise the money and have kids directly benefit from it, then that's great," he said.

Two of the children who benefited from the donation were Ryan and Lana Elliot. The children used two words over and over to describe their flight.

"It was cool," said 12-year-old Ryan.

"It was fun," said his 11-year-old sister Lana.

The two youngsters, originally from the Okanese First Nation in southeastern Saskatchewan had never been on a plane before so they said that every turn, sound and sight aboard the fully refurbished Lockheed was "cool" and "fun."

Esther Kreiser, who, with her husband, Pastor Lloyd Kreiser, selected the children from their inner city Sunday schools and day camps, was the adult chaperone on the flight.

She said the children were all very excited. None of them had flown before.

"She never took her face from off the window," Kreiser said about Lana's reaction to the bird's-eye view.

Ryan said the terrific plane ride was like an amusement park ride.

"It felt like the Gravitron," he said, likening the ride to the fast moving, midway ride which makes its occupants feel weightless as it spins around.

With the success of the Dreams Take Flight fundraiser, more children will be able to experience the flying sensation, but the next time it will be more than just a local trip. Sometime in October, children from across Canada will be flown from Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax to Disney's Magic Kingdom for a whirl wind, one ay meet-and-greet with Mickey and all of his friends.

Dreams Take Flight has been operating since 1989. All the services provided, from the airplane itself to the pilots and flight crew are donated.

The funds raised by the Lockheed flights will go toward fuel costs, food, ground transportation, and handling costs of the Dreams Take Flight trip. Children making the trip are also fully outfitted in Disney-essential gear, including, T-shirts, hats, sunglasses and knapsacks. They also receive spending money so they can buy souvenirs to go along with the memories of their trip.