Under Her Wing, Girls’ Spirits Soar

They’re called buddy passes, and airline employees covet them so they can fly friends and relatives almost anywhere for a nominal cost.

But an American Airlines flight attendant and her colleagues are giving up some of the treasured tickets to take six girls from the Olive Crest home for abused and neglected children to Washington this week.

Jolee Sullivan, 31, of Newport Beach got the idea for the trip in a self-improvement class that emphasized working with and helping others. “I am a flight attendant, and I thought, ‘What can I do?’ ” she said.

People in travel, hospitality and politics heard of the project and were touched by it, volunteering to help with travel expenses and free services.

A Marriott hotel in Virginia will provide free rooms and airport shuttle service. And congressional aides for U.S. Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) arranged a VIP tour of the White House.

The Shake Shack in Laguna Beach supplied free disposable cameras so the girls could photograph their journey. And one woman gave each girl a travel backpack stuffed with cash, candy, toothpaste and copies of “It Takes a Village” by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sullivan chose Washington because of its educational and inspirational value. “When you get to Washington, you get this special feeling,” Sullivan said. “You get this sense of what you belong to as an American.”

The teens couldn’t be more excited about the trip, which starts Thursday. They put the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Capitol and FBI headquarters at top of their four-day itinerary. They return to Orange County on Sunday.

The girls said they are amazed by Sullivan’s generosity and thrilled by the opportunity to travel. “She’s changing our lives,” one girl said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It means a lot to us, and so does she.”

The girls, ages 15 to 18, have been in foster care and group homes for years and rarely travel for pleasure. Occasionally they go on field trips to Magic Mountain and other Southern California attractions, but no children in any of Olive Crest’s 12 Orange County homes have been flown across the country by a volunteer.

“Stuff like this doesn’t happen to them,” said Robin Molnar, a therapist at the Olive Crest home in Orange. “Other teenagers get to go on vacation--now they get to go on vacation.”