Cienega High School graduates’ botched trip to California is back on with the help of community members and businesses who pitched in.
The owners of two local Culver’s restaurants each pitched in $7,500 after hearing that more than 70 students were going to miss out on their once-in-a-lifetime graduation trip.
Other donations followed.
The school’s Class of 2017 graduates left the Tucson area Monday night and safely arrived in California, said Darcy Mentone, a Vail schools spokeswoman.
“They rode the bus all night, slept on the bus, and they’re at Disneyland today,” she said Tuesday.
The students and their adult chaperones were supposed to leave Sunday night on a graduation trip to the beach, Disneyland and Universal Studios.
But the trip was derailed after their buses never showed to pick them up, and it turned out Senior Grad Trips, the travel company the students booked through, never paid the bus company or the hotel in full.
Cienega school staff and parents tried to reach company representatives, but as of Tuesday afternoon, no one was answering, Mentone said.
The website also was down for a while, she said. It’s back up now, but now there is a different phone number listed for the man who was Cienega’s contact for the California trip.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the matter, and some parents have filed or plan to file complaints against Senior Grad Trips to the attorney general’s office in Texas, where the company is based, Mentone said.
The trip may have had some missteps, but now the kids are off to some fun. That’s all thanks to community support, Mentone said.
“This is just the most amazing community I’ve ever encountered,” she said. “We just are all so grateful to be a part of Vail.”
Culver’s owner Ed Norton said his partner Kevin Hart suggested they help the stranded seniors make their trip.
“To us, it’s not a tagline. We talk about family and our community, and that’s exactly what it is,” Norton said. “When you’re local, you want to take care of your own. This is the right thing to do for them. It’s a horrible situation.”
Other donors included Crest Insurance, Cat Frat, Costco at I-10 and Kino Parkway, Chuy’s on Houghton and the Cienega High School Renaissance Club, as well as individual community members.
