Ten high school students in the Youth/Student Exchange Program from the Santa Barbara/Puerto Vallarta Sister Cities Committee participated in Easy Lift’s Children’s Accessible Transportation (C.A.T.) program.
The C.A.T. program provided the transportation for the students to visit Disneyland.
“The cost to hire a chauffeur and pay for insurance to transport the students to Disneyland was not in our budget,” said Marti Correa de Garcia, treasurer of the Santa Barbara/Puerto Vallarta Sister Cities Committee. “The C.A.T. program made it possible for us to keep Disneyland as a destination activity for our exchange students.”
C.A.T. provides transportation to many youth and teen programs that don’t have transportation in their budgets, whereas Easy Lift, as the designated Consolidated Transit Service Agency, has the ability to transport teens in a safe and competent manner.
C.A.T. is free to its recipients and is arranged through collaborative efforts with the partnering youth agencies.
Since 2008, C.A.T. has provided more than 6,000 rides to the less advantaged children of the community, and collaborated with 17 youth agencies, including CALM, Domestic Violence Solutions, El Puente Community School, the Endowment for Youth, the Family Service Agency of Santa Barbara, First 5, the Future Leaders of America, Girls Inc., the Goleta Boys & Girls Club, Just Communities, the Montecito Family YMCA, the Police Activities League, the Santa Barbara County Education Office, Storyteller, Transition House, the UCSB Summer Wheelchair Camp and United Way.
— Leann Anderson is the community relations director for Easy Lift Transportation.
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