Kids, many with tough backgrounds, excitedly take to the skies.
Things look different from an airplane.
Hoping to give some kids a greater perspective, the Fresno Police Activities League offered them plane rides Saturday morning. Pilots from the Experimental Aircraft Association volunteered their services, taking off from Sierra Sky Park.
Sarah Sabala, 16, said she was scared to climb into a small, single-engine plane. But she did it anyway.
During the flight, her first time in a plane, she felt a little sick to her stomach. But she loved it anyway.
"You know how on TV they show everything looking like little squares and boxes from an airplane? I thought they were lying. But it really does look like that," she said. "I was shocked and amazed."
The pilot let her take the controls at one point. They flew over Friant Dam.
"There was a big wall holding back all the water. I didn't know we had that," she said. "It makes me want to know more about all the things I don't know about."
Before she got involved in a couple of youth-mentoring programs, Sarah didn't go on many outings.
She says she came from an abusive home, spent time in foster care, tried drugs briefly in seventh grade.
"Then these people came around and started taking me places. We went to Monterey. I had only seen the ocean on paper. To see it alive, it was so big and so pretty," she said.
"Today I flew in an airplane. I'll never forget it. To see and do things, I really like it. I don't want it to stop."
Most of the 40-some kids on the dusty field Saturday, coming off planes or waiting for their turn, had some things not working in their favor: poverty, lack of family, little guidance. Most of them had never been outside Fresno.
But Sarah said there was a chance -- with a little help -- that this group could achieve many things.
"There's a big chance you can do anything if you meet the right person and you can trust them," she said.
Kevin Coleman, 9, almost missed his plane ride. He was rough-housing and distracting other kids during the orientation.
His mentor, Jeral Richardson, a retired police officer, sat Kevin down on a chair and told him if he couldn't behave, he couldn't go up in a plane.
Richardson said he would have followed through on his threat, but Kevin rejoined the group, behaved politely -- and had 20 minutes in the air.
Kevin came off the plane holding his stomach but beaming.
"It tickles your stomach," he said about flying.
"It felt like we were going to fall out of the sky, but we didn't."
While Kevin was up in the plane, Richardson used the word "handful" more than once while describing the outgoing, burly kid from west Fresno who wants to be a football player. But he always said it with a smile.
"That kid is a work of art," Richardson said "He's smart. A lot of the times when he's getting in trouble, it's just because he's bored. He needs some boundaries."
And wider horizons.
"I'm always telling him, look, if you put your mind to it, the sky's the limit," Richardson said.
He smiled at his unintended, but fitting, choice of words as another plane landed and exhilarated kids tumbled out the cockpit doors.
MARK CROSSE/THE FRESNO BEE
Kevin Coleman, 9, grins ear to ear after flying for the first time. For most of the kids it was the first time they had ever flown in an airplane. Each child got a 20-minute flight.
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