It was early February of this year and Janus Academy Executive Director Carlene Chrumka was in a bind.
“Our bus had died and we weren’t really able to go out into the community,” she said.
A new bus was needed to take students on their frequent field trips that make up a critical part of their education.
Janus Academy’s student body is comprised of children on the autism spectrum and taking them to activities outside of the school allows them to put classroom teachings into practice.
“It’s so much more than just the academics,” said Chrumka. “It’s being able to take what we would call ‘soft skills’ — so like communicating, interacting with people and being able to share and build friendships — and being able to get out in the community really helps us to be able to do that.
“It’s just so important for our kids.”
As a non-profit organization, the school didn’t have the funds to replace the old bus so a GoFundMe page was created to try raise the $75,000 needed to buy a new one.
A few thousand dollars had trickled in when Global News aired the story.
“I heard about it on the radio going home from work one night,” said Perry McCormack, who had been listening to the television broadcast on Global’s Corus Entertainment sister station CHQR 770 News.
“It was on Global News that I heard about it… and I thought it would be a good idea for our charity.”
As general manager for Gregg Distributors in southern Alberta, the charity McCormack was referring to was the 100 or so employees under his charge who had been collectively squirreling away money they had raised for such an occasion.
“We’d been raising money for a number of years, looking for the ways to spend our money that would best serve the community and when I heard this, I figured we had the dollars available so we figured it would be a good way to spend our dollars.”
McCormack’s staff didn’t just make up the difference needed for the new bus, they covered the entire cost of it.
“To have got the phone call to say, ‘Hey, this is Perry at Gregg Distributors, we want to buy you a bus,” started Chrumka, describing the call she got following the airing of their story.
“I started crying. I was like, ‘The whole bus?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, the whole bus.'”
The shock of that call was quickly replaced by utter excitement and gratitude which was on full display this week when staff and students got their first look at their new bus.
“It’s awesome,” said Janus Academy student Lynsie.
“This is amazing,” added Chrumka.
The $15,000 that had been raised through GoFundMe campaign has been earmarked for insurance fees, upkeep and other miscellaneous expenses related to the operation of the new bus.
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