Up, up and away

HAYDEN — Riley Stevens has already led a pretty turbulent life.

The Hayden 17-year-old was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, aplastic anemia, when he was just 11. He spent years in isolation being treated for this condition.

Riley slowly recovered and now feels great, but he is still a teenage boy, prone to mischief and sometimes poor judgment.

"What happened was I had made a couple bad decisions," Riley candidly shared with The Press on Friday. "I was feeling pretty bad about myself, like I'm a bad kid doing bad things, beating myself up."

Riley enrolled in a special program, S.O.A.R.I.N.G. (Special Opportunities Affirm Recognition in Noteworthy Goals), a volunteer-run nonprofit that helped lift him to a higher path.

Using airplanes and aviation as a metaphor for life, S.O.A.R.I.N.G. provides counseling and goal-setting to encourage youths to be their best selves. It was founded by marriage and family therapist Joe McCarron 25 years ago.

"They have this bag with model planes in it. You reach in and you pick one," Riley explained. "That model plane, every week you go in to see Joe, you're supposed to do research and find a fact about it. You have to come up with something interesting about yourself as well.

"Using the plane, you can dig in further to yourself as a person, which can help you build up self-confidence and feel better about the situation you're in at the time."

On Saturday, Riley graduated from the S.O.A.R.I.N.G. program, exuding confidence as he rocked sweet shades and exited a stretch Hummer limousine at the Resort Aviation Jet Center in Hayden.

Once S.O.A.R.I.N.G. youths complete their counseling work, they get more than a certificate or a pat on the back — they get to pilot a plane with the help of a flight instructor.

"It was amazing," Riley said when he returned from flying a Cessna 172 for about a half hour with his little brother Ethan, 11, and sister Olivia, 14, as guest passengers. "The turbulence made you bounce around a little bit, but toward the end I got a little more comfortable in the plane."

Flight instructor and commercial pilot Darrell Kisler has been provided his services for S.O.A.R.I.N.G. for the past 10 years to give grads that rewarding experience of flight at their own control.

"It's always a blast," he said, adding that his favorite part of being the co-pilot is "the joy they get, the fun, watching the looks on their faces and the excitement they get out of it."

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"I mean, I'm not taking them, they're taking me," he said with a big smile.

Riley was the 1,021st graduate to complete the S.O.A.R.I.N.G. program and go up in a plane. Some previous graduates and their families attended his graduation celebration in the Jet Center, including Kate Dolan, whose 12-year-old son, Dan Dolan, is presently in the program working on anxiety and social issues.

She said their family is very much looking forward to when Dan gets to graduate and have his experience in the pilot's seat.

"He's just become more confident and he's become less critical of himself," she said. "It's funny that today's a graduation because we had this breakthrough during our session with Joe on Thursday where my son was able to work through some emotions without shutting down. He was able to be open and listen and not shut down emotionally during intense discussion. Joe is wonderful."

Director McCarron will be handing over many of his responsibilities to his colleagues so he himself can get back into the pilot's seat after a quarter-century working with youths who have left lasting marks on his heart. He speaks fondly of the many kiddos who have turned their lives around with his help and who have contacted him when they've grown up into productive, responsible adults.

"It has been my child," he said of S.O.A.R.I.N.G. "And like everyone's child, you need to let it go, and you need to make sure as much as you can it goes in the right direction. I think I've done both."

Board vice president Steve Gajewski said McCarron has worked relentlessly, sometimes without any help, to keep the program afloat.

"The collective impact is huge — 1,021, it's staggering," Gajewski said. "This is a very important, pivotal point in the history of S.O.A.R.I.N.G. We don't want this program to fly off into the sunset. What we want to do is consolidate this tremendous legacy and grow the program and bring in dozens, scores of kids per year, really scale it up and get more people from the community involved as facilitators, board members and volunteers and really enlarge the impact."

Info: www.soaringyouth.org