By Eliza Ridgeway

Pilot Brenor Brophy, Tiger Lily and Azurée Lovely, Robby Overstreet and Care-A-Van drivers Maureen Lane and Sean Kenison assemble before Brophy flies the family back to Crescent City.

When a child becomes gravely ill in a family without a car or reliable transportation, just getting to the hospital can be a huge task. But at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, Care-A-Van for Kids organizes a fleet of volunteer drivers, including Los Altans, to assist the Bay Area’s most vulnerable patients.

Last Wednesday, 8-month-old Tiger Lily Lovely flew from Crescent City, 400 miles north on the Oregon border, for an appointment at the Stanford children’s hospital. The hospital specializes in the treatment of her disorder.

Tiger Lily missed her last appointment because her parents, Azurée Lovely and Robby Overstreet, couldn’t find a car to borrow for the 20-hour round-trip drive.

This time, the infant and her parents could rely on a 2-hour flight and 15-minute drive.

On her day off last Thursday, Los Altos resident Maureen Lane, a third-grade teacher at Santa Rita, drove the homebound Tiger Lily to the Palo Alto airport. She learned about the program through an ad in the newspaper three years ago and said she tries to drive once a week.

Tiger Lily’s access to the hospital last week was a result of the collaboration of two volunteer groups, Angel Flight and Care-A-Van for kids. Now that her parents know about these volunteers, Tiger Lily will have a ride for all her future appointments.

Sean Kenison, who grew up in Los Altos and went to Mountain View High School, drives families from the East Bay to the hospital on his days off duty as a Newark firefighter. He recruits volunteers at his and other fire stations.

Firefighters were the first volunteers with Care-A-Van when it began seven years ago. Thirty-five volunteers now drive the fleet of seven vans (donated by sponsors such as Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies). But Kenison and Lane both said that more volunteers are the program’s greatest need.

“I’ve been driving five and six families a day,” Lane said. “I feel like I’m filling a void.”

“The moms describe the volunteer drivers (the same) all the time - they say, ‘they are angels, coming to help us,’” ride coordinator Beatriz Pastor said. “We can all make a difference in their lives. They are going through such a tough time.”

She said that volunteers come from every background, from realtor to homemaker.

This past year 207 patients received 711 rides from Care-A-Van, many of them repeat visits for treatments like chemotherapy. Women with high-risk pregnancies and newborns often rely on the program.

This month, a poor East Bay mother is relying on Care-A-Van to be able to visit and bond with her infant, who must stay in neonatal intensive care until January.

About 60 percent of the families transported by the free, all-volunteer service speak only Spanish, and Pastor answers the phone with a chiming, “Caravana para niños.”

Most of the volunteers speak only English, but important phrases are posted in both languages in the vans, and every driver carries a cell phone. The program coordinators are bilingual.

The hospital’s sterling research and clinicians draw children with critical conditions from all over the western United States.

“Our doctor in Crescent City referred us to a doctor in Arcata, who referred us here,” Lovely said. “(This hospital) said that all of these cases come to them. It’s reassuring.”

Tiger Lily’s rosy face sports a puffy right cheek, a symptom of her congenital lymphatic malformation, but she was good-tempered after her first plane flight.

“She’s been doing really well with the doctors,” Lovely said. “With the flight, it was so much easier.”

“It’s stressful enough to be bringing the baby,” Lane said of their earlier car trips. “Being from a small town, not used to Bay Area traffic, makes it worse.”

Overstreet had never been in a plane before, and as the volunteer pilot zoomed over San Francisco enroute to the hospital, Overstreet took pictures of the panoramic view. He works as a prep-cook in Crescent City and can use his days off to fly down with his daughter, but he said that without the patience of his employers (and the help of Angel Flights), “I’d be without a job.”

Their volunteer pilot on the return trip, Brenor Brophy of San Jose, has been donating his plane and time to Angel Flight for the last year and half. He works in high-tech and began volunteering as soon as he was eligible after learning to fly two and a half years ago. He promised the parents a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge on their morning flight up the coast. As they prepared to board the plane, Tiger Lily was drifting off to sleep, her fist clutching her mother’s sweatshirt.