Angels in America
The Corporate Angel Network takes cancer patients under its wing.

Reya Stallman, a young cancer patient, in flight to a New York treatment center.

Amy Pastorella was just two when her parents noticed that her right eye had begun to turn inward. Then, as they sat with her in a pediatric ophthalmologist's office near their Utica, NY, home, they were shocked to learn that a malignant tumor had developed in the cells of their bubbly little girl's retina.

Within days, they took Amy to New York City to see a retinoblastoma specialist, a radiologist and a genetics specialist. After a week of tests, the experts decided that Amy could receive radiology treatment in Syracuse, near her home, but she would have to fly to New York City for routine checkups – for the next 15 years.

While Amy's parents wanted the best care for their daughter, they wondered how they would be able to pay the substantial airline costs. Then they heard about the Corporate Angel Network (CAN).

Founded in 1981 in White Plains, NY, CAN is the brainchild of pilot and inventor Leonard Greene and his friends Pat Blum and Jay Weinberg. As a pilot, Greene knew the corporate planes that flew business leaders to meetings around the country often had empty seats. And, as the husband of a woman who died of cancer at age 45, he knew that transportation to lifesaving treatment could be costly.

So he and his co-founders asked corporations to donate empty seats for cancer patients traveling to treatment centers where the companies were already headed. To date, the group boasts 530 corporations, including many Fortune 500 companies across the country, and is always looking for more. CAN provides more than 200 patient flights a month and, in January, the organization celebrated its 20,000th flight.

“It shows that corporate America has a bigger heart than most people imagine,” says Greene, 79.

CAN volunteers and staff arrange flights for both adults and children and offer seats for parents to accompany their youngsters or vice versa.

Christine Burnett of West Town, NY, adopted her daughter, Casey, in China about a year before she found out she had cancer of the lung and liver. Having beaten uterine cancer a decade before at Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Chicago, the 58-year-old knew she wanted to return there for this battle. So she called CAN; and, after saying good-bye to her husband, David, and teenage son, Edward, she and her toddler were on their way for a three-month stay in Chicago. She hopes to finish her trips this year.

“It can be very difficult and expensive to travel so often. Flying commercially is so uncomfortable when you're sick,” says Burnett, who adds that a weakened immune system makes traditional flights risky. “You would think some businesspeople might not want a small child on the plane, but they treated my daughter like gold.”

Pastorella, now 22, agrees. “These people were so important! But they would talk to me and I remember the pilot even let me sit up in the cockpit.”

CAN supports its efforts through grants from corporations and foundations, including the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the Breast Cancer Alliance. CAN executive director Bonnie Le Var, who is Greene's daughter, says all the attention has an added benefit. “The patients feel so supported and connected to a huge population that cares about them. It's such a simple idea – but it's a great idea.”