The gift of flight.

I've never been a big fan of watching the news. While I think it's important to stay current on what is happening in our world, I can't help but notice that 90 percent of what we watch on television or read in the newspapers is negative and depressing, constantly projecting the down side of the human spirit. We hear about school shootings, wars, a chronic failing economy, our environment in peril, the rising cost of gasoline and healthcare, and parents and religious leaders who abuse children. I tend to be a person who chooses to see the glass of life as half full, but if I'm being constantly exposed to such sadness, it makes it difficult to keep an optimistic attitude. I know that miracles happen every day, but why don't we hear about them more?

If you share the same feelings as I do, let me see what I can do to restore your faith in the goodwill of human nature. Enter Ann McGee, a 60-year-old, former teacher of children with disabilities. Her mission of miracles began in Nevada in 1983 while volunteering to arrange air transport of blood to hospitals. One evening she received a phone call from the father of a seven-year-old boy battling cancer. The boy had an appointment in California with a specialist, but the family couldn't afford the airfare. Imagine coping with the dilemma of having medical care arranged for your critically ill child but not being able to afford the transportation to get to it. "Can you help me?" the boy's father asked. And so it began--a mission of miracles.

Ann McGee believes a healthy life is the natural birthright of every child. She has dedicated the latter part of her life working to improve the access children challenged with debilitating conditions such as cancer, spina bifida, heart and lung diseases, cerebral palsy, and muscular dystrophy have to healthcare and to receiving the proper, urgent attention they need to give them a chance at life. By allowing children to have the best medical attention available, they are given the greatest chance for the best possible outcome.

Miracle Flights for Kids, founded in 1985, is a program that is dedicated to helping extremely sick children get the highly specialized care they need by breaking through the financial barriers put on them and their families. With the extraordinary cost of healthcare today, illnesses can often lead to serious financial hardship within a family. Very few private insurance plans and absolutely no government programs provide for air transportation to the specialized facilities very ill children need to visit. Miracle Flights flies children across the United States so that they have access to care that may be far from home.

As the nation's leading nonprofit medical flight organization, Miracle Flights For Kids' mission is to eliminate the restrictions to healthcare access and improve the quality of life for America's children. They have developed the necessary relationships with pilots, airlines, and sponsors that provide the means to fly children to and from treatments as many times as needed. Miracle Flights' wish is to assure families with limited financial resources that their sick child is not without options and to encourage parents to seek out doctors and hospitals who specialize in their child's disease regardless of where those specialists might be located. Miracle Flights also strongly urges parents to get a second opinion regarding their child's condition because it is a crucial part of determining the best medical treatment choices available. Miracle Flights For Kids pledges that "this is their reason for continuing to grow," and to date, they have coordinated more than 51,000 flights!

When speaking with Randy Schow, Miracle Flights Development Officer, I asked him if he could tell me about a few Miracle Flights passengers who particularly touched and inspired him. He said all of the children were special, and he couldn't choose one from another. One story he shared with me, however, stuck out in my mind. A little boy of four years old named Joshua was challenged with cerebral palsy. He wasn't eating, was unable to speak, and was deteriorating rapidly. The doctor who his mother took him to told her to put a "do not resuscitate" (DNR) order in Joshua's diaper bag. Naturally, Joshua's mother was appalled and refused to accept this doctor's prognosis as her child's fate. Upon making some contacts and inquiries for another option, Joshua's mom found a specialist on the West Coast who felt he had a good chance in helping her little boy. Miracle Flights then stepped in with a magic carpet to transport Joshua and his mom to this optimistic doctor. Today, some 10 years later, that seriously ill little boy who couldn't eat is a thriving teenager. Besides the obvious inspiration and "audacity of hope" that Joshua's mother's determination communicates to us, it also shows the enormous importance of a second opinion.

Miracle Flights For Kids operates through private and corporate donations only. Ann McGee and her staff search on the Internet for super cheap seats and solicit donated seats through airlines. Miracle Flights is not a member of the United Way Fund or supported by any government agencies, and they stress how all donations and contributions are truly helpful. Any individual, organization, or corporation can easily help by visiting the organization's Web site at www.miracleflights.org.

We live in a beautiful world full of generous souls who are accomplishing remarkable things. Miracle Flights For Kids helps thousands of children every year get the specialized medical attention they need and deserve to allow them the best quality of life possible. This organization was started over 25 years ago, and with continued volunteerism and support, Miracle Flights For Kids will keep on flying their missions of miracles.

Amy E. Alexander currently lives in Upstate New York, next door to the horse farm on which she was raised. She's enjoyed living all over the country but has to say there is no place like home! Over the last few years, she's begun inspirational speaking, which she truly enjoys, and also wrote her first memoir last year entitled, Life At Breakneck Speed. If you'd like to read more about Amy and her non-profit foundation, check out her Web site at www.spinaltimes.org.