Jane Lane

By Deirdre O'Shea

ON A PERFECT MORNING in Mission Beach, Jane Lane is entertaining a family at her “triplex”—her house, a mother-in-law cottage and a one-bedroom apartment over the garage, California style. Later she’ll bike along the bay with her bichon frise, Roscoe, who rides in the basket.

It’s rare downtime. Usually her house is filled with special-needs children. Like 5- year-old Francisco (pictured), who has Down syndrome. He’s here from Veracruz, Mexico, for treatment at the Osteopathic Center for Children in East San Diego. Cassidy, an 18-month-old from Hawaii, just left after a five-week stay. She was a patient at Children’s Hospital, where she had spinal surgery for scoliosis.

Lane, who turns 60 this month, is the force behind Jane Lane’s Kids (858-488-7228), a nonprofit founded in May 2000 to provide free, furnished, vacation- type housing to these children and their families. She pays rent and upkeep on four units, including an apartment at the Osteopathic Center.

She doesn’t take a salary and has no employees. “I do it all myself,” she says, “except for a bookkeeper.”

Raised in Utah, Lane traveled the world for 37 years as a United Airlines flight attendant. In 1970, she moved to San Diego. After a 12-year marriage ended, she struck out on her own and bought at the beach.

Her vacation-rental business was picking up in 1998 when a woman from Colorado stopped by. She and her 3-year-old boy had been all over the United States, seeking medical help for his seizures. In three weeks at the Osteopathic Center, her child had improved dramatically, but they were living with a friend. She needed a little house, with a little yard.

Lane couldn’t turn her away. “I always knew I wouldn’t be the richest flight attendant in the graveyard,” she says.

Word of her generosity spread, but soon, by the end of ’99, she couldn’t pay her bills. Out of nowhere a cousin mailed her $5,000. Then a friend and former tenant—now a doctor at UCSD—surprised Lane by paying a financial planner to make her a nonprofit.

The donations keep coming (one neighbor brings every family a casserole), helped along by publicity, Lane’s speaking engagements at charitable organizations and numerous awards for her work.

“My minister calls this a ministry,” says Lane. “I call it the work of my heart.”

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