(Photo: Arizona Republic 12/07/09 Fantasy Flight)I didn’t know about a unique charity but today I found an article about a Fantasy Flight program in Phoenix, where I live. For the past 13 years, United Airlines has hosted the event for homeless kids from the Pappas School. The Pappas School is a school for homeless children. The purpose of the school is to offer support services to enhance their chances of success.
About 100 homeless children from the school are flown on a 10-minute United Airlines flight to the North Pole (circling above Phoenix) and are greeted by Santa Clause after landing. Most of these kids have never flown before. When the flight ends, the children are surprised with a "North Pole" for them where they receive gifts from Santa Clause. To me this is what the spirit of Christmas is all about.
Cynics complain that it is appalling to lie to poor homeless children in this way and wonder about the future of the world.
Optimists believe that these poor homeless children experience the cruelties of real life on a daily basis and that they deserve to live a dream, if only for a moment.
I worry that these children may get sick or freeze to death, or never gradate from school.
While I was reading this article, it hit me that the Pappas School will be closing next year. All of the homeless children will be assimilated into regular schools. Of course, this is due to budget deficits in the Phoenix school district. Although I didn’t know about the fantasy flight program, I was always proud to live in a city that has a special school for homeless children.
This makes about as little sense as the school voucher program being eliminated in Washington D.C. It’s very disillusioning to live in a country where the government claims to want equality for everyone, yet they cut funding for special programs for disadvantaged children.
This does not sound like the kind of change our children deserve.
I'll need some help down from my soap box.
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6 comments:
I'm sure that the Fantasy flight programme does add sparkle to the lives of the kids. A bit of frivolity is a great thing
Still what is this if their lives are so precarious that their most basic of needs are not guaranteed.
I don't know of anything similar to the Pappas in the UK. I'm intrigued.
I think homeless kids here are educated in the state system. I must ask my sister who has been a secondary school teacher for over 30 years
That is sad. Maybe they will still be able to support some enhancement programs for them. Always a wonderful cause to support...giving the innocents a chance to break out of the cycle.
What these children need is love and happiness, I'm all for them going.
In UK there is a wonderful charity now, called Barnardo's which provides children's homes; it has being doing a grand job ever since Thomas John Barnado opened his first homes in 1868 - one cottage for boys and one for girls, in Stepney...Long may he be remembered.
I should get off my ass and form some kind of a "save the Pappas school activist group" while there is still time, Jams.
You hit it on the head Mama. They need special services so they can succeed, not drop out, and break the cycle.
Imac, I agree.
What a great program and it started way back in the 1800s? Amazing. I'll have to look it up and read more about it, Penny.
It’s very disillusioning to live in a country where the government claims to want equality for everyone, yet they cut funding for special programs for disadvantaged children.
*So true! And so well said. Equality for everyone with enough cash to have political influence, apparently.*
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