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Local resident lauds First Student bus service following vaccine appointment at Alder

March 18, 2021   ·   0 Comments

By Sam Odrowski

An Orangeville resident was recently blown away by the level of service provided by First Student’s local transit system.

Robin Ward and his wife of 60 years, Lynne, live on Gooseberry Street and were in need of transportation to the Alder Street Recreation Centre so Lynne could receive the COVID-19 vaccine last Thursday (March 11).

She’s confined to a wheel chair and cannot move her feet so transportation is often times difficult and their only option was to use public transit for the vaccine appointment.

The closest stop that has buses with a proper wheelchair is the Montgomery and Gooseberry intersection with the buses coming once every half hour. Due to the colder weather, Mr. Ward said he didn’t want to subject his wife to the frigid temperatures, so he called First Student, who runs Orangeville’s community transit service, to find out their schedule.

After Mr. Ward explained his situation to the women who took his call, she quickly spoke to her manager and told him that they’d be able to pick him up from the driveway of his home as long as he gave a donation to the local food bank.

“They came down and picked her up right out of the driveway on a lift inside for the wheelchair, took us over, waited in the bus until there was five minutes before the appointment, which is a requirement when getting the shots,” explained Mr. Ward.

“I wheeled her inside and we went to wait, which took about an hour. In the meantime, the bus driver stayed outside and waited and when we came back, he jumped right out of the bus and loaded her on and brought us home right to the driveway again.”

On the bus ride home, Mr. Ward said the driver told him that when his wife needs to go for her second shot, which is scheduled for June, they can call again and have it done all over again.

“I think that that’s above and beyond any service that any bus company should be doing and how community minded,” he lauded.

“Usually, big corporations like that or not so locally minded, they’re just in it for the bucks type of thing, but these people, especially the lady that came here and her manager are just lovely people.”

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