BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- During the past 30 years, Thrasher Brothers Trailways has taken thousands of Alabama students on educational field trips.

The company has taken them to the State Capitol in Montgomery, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma, the King Center in Atlanta, and the African-American Museum in Chattanooga.

The youngsters who have traveled on the companys motorcoaches, though, have come almost entirely from schools where the students have families that can afford to pay for the trips.

Thats finally changing now, thanks to the efforts of Jim A. Thrasher, president of the company bearing his family name.

Thrasher has created a nonprofit organization the Educational Foundation Trust Inc thats raising money so youngsters from schools populated with needy and at-risk students can go on field trips on motorcoaches, too.

"Its just something that I wanted to do," said Thrasher. "I saw the need and knew there was something I could do about it."

Thrasher said he never really realized that most students taking field trips over the years were from those schools in middle- or upper-class neighborhoods, and none of them was from the needy areas of the county.

About four years ago, though, his sales manager tried to sell an out-of-town field trip to the principal of Whatley School, an elementary school just a few blocks from Thrashers company headquarters.

"He came back and told me the principal said most of the kids at the school were on the federal free-lunch program and their parents could not afford to pay for field trips for their children," Thrasher said. "Thats when I realized I could contribute."

Thrasher immediately began laying the groundwork that eventually led to the creation of the trust. He had his office accountant apply for a nonprofit and tax-free certification for it from the Internal Revenue Service. More than two and a half years later, he got it.

Meantime, Dr. Michael Wilson, the Whatley School principal responsible for triggering the idea, pitched in and agreed to serve on the trusts board of directors.

Thrasher has worked hard to bring his plan to life and in January, he organized the first trip sponsored by the foundation a visit to the Alabama State Capitol for 28 fourth grade students at you guessed it Whatley School.

"They were studying Alabama history, so it was a very good trip for them," he said. "Some of those kids had never been out of Jefferson County."

In addition to the Capitol, the kids toured the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Church where the late Rev. Martin Luther King once served as pastor. "They even got to sit in the chair he used to sit in," he added.

Thrasher is planning three more trips over the next three months for other under-privileged kids from different schools. The criteria for schools to take part, he said, is that at least 68 percent of their students qualify for the federal free-lunch program.

While Thrasher financed the initial trip on his own, hes now out raising money to pay for the coaches for the next trips and future trips.

Hes mostly calling on businesses in the community and around the state, including three auto assembly plants that have opened in Alabama in recent years.

"I want to take junior and senior high students to tour those automobile plants so they can see that if they work hard in school they can get high paying jobs such as those at the auto plants," he said.

As part of his game plan, he insists that teachers of the kids who go on a trip write a report or take a test on what they saw and visited so donors to the trust know where their money is going.

"We want everything to be above board and for those who contribute money to be able to see where their money is going and how it is being used," he added.

Thrasher said as more and more field trips come up, he plans to hire operators who belong to the Alabama Motorcoach Association to conduct them.