A fleet of school buses packed to the brim carried supplies, toys and a little bit of hope across the state to those impacted by the recent tornadoes.
The sea of yellow flooded the interstate growing bigger “as geography allowed,” said Greenup County Superintendent Traysea Moresea.
Northeastern Kentucky school districts met in Rowan County. Local police in Rowan worked to control traffic while the entire caravan made it onto the interstate without being broken into segments, said Moresea.
Other eastern counties met in Magoffin County, said Lawrence County Superintendent Robbie Fletcher.
When the caravan made its way to Winchester and Mt. Sterling, school districts in those areas tagged on and began their journey. As the buses carried through toward the Bluegrass Parkway, districts in Central Kentucky joined the caravan.
Moresea contacted Sam Howard of Trace Creek Construction in Lewis County because she knew he always got involved in helping the community when these type of situations arise.
Moresea was hoping to fill a single bus. One became 100.
More specifically, 75 buses, 25 delivery vehicles and several personal SUVs caravanned across the state together, according to Howard. That doesn’t include others who participated, but weren’t in the same caravan, he said.
Many of the buses ended up in Butler County where the county school system created a distribution center in its Advance Technology Center, said Howard. Howard is still in western Kentucky with eight Trace Creek employees helping to organize the distribution and lend a hand to victims.
Butler County Schools, along with the Green River Regional Education Cooperative and Western Kentucky Education Cooperative, worked to coordinate where the supplies would be stored and distributed.
Butler County Judge-Executive Tim Flener said the next step is reaching out and seeing what the needs are in each affected area and getting teams put in place to meet those needs. The amount of supplies and buses was “overwhelming” as buses began arriving at 8 a.m. to be unloaded. The team in Butler continued unloading all day. The last bus was empty and ready to depart around 4 p.m.
“It was just an outpouring of kindness from Eastern Kentucky, my goodness it’s just unreal,” said Flener.
The Butler County team is largely made up of the school system’s teachers, students and parents. The crew stayed until about 7 p.m. Monday night. They were back at 8 a.m. Tuesday sorting the donations into categories. Flener praised the local people of Butler and their willingness to keep showing up.
Butler County is within about an hour and a half of most of the devastation, so they are working to be a central location that is out of the way of those trying to sort through the aftermath. Flener continued to help load a trailer as he spoke with The Daily Independent Tuesday afternoon. There’s a great amount of work being done.
“We’re just like everyone else. Just happy to do our part to help those people out there that literally lost everything that they’ve accumulated in a lifetime,” said Flener. “We don’t know when the next time, it may be us, and we might be the ones that need help, so we’re just really glad to be able to help at this time.”
The “Stuff the Bus” campaign began with the idea of sending some toys. Howard and Moresea agreed a bus load of toys would be a good idea as Christmas inches closer and closer.
“Personally, if a tornado would have hit our house at that time, all of my gifts would have been gone for my kids,” said Moresea. “So we really thought giving gifts to kids to give them a little bit of hope would be a good idea.”
She said the local Dollar General stores donated and sent wrapping supplies. The students of Greenup County were the major contributors to the Greenup buses. The students also wrapped the gifts, sorting and labeling them by age group.
Businesses got on board and became drop off locations. The Greenup McDonald’s fed the 20-plus crew from Greenup that made the trip, said Moresea.
A bus load of toys grew and each district that jumped on board had a donation type they focused on. Moresea said she sent the idea to other superintendents in a group text.
“They all immediately, within minutes, were replying ‘yes,’ so really it all gets attributed to the people who were willing to say yes and willing to do the right thing for others,” said Moresea.
Fletcher took the information from Moresea and passed it along to the 16th region. Fletcher said within 20 minutes all the superintendents were on board.
“There’s no words to describe what people can do and how hard people work,” said Fletcher. “We all wore the same uniform that day.”
Fletcher tried to describe what it was like traveling with the caravan. He was only able to go so far, before coming back for a board meeting, but described it as amazing, awesome and unbelievable.
Fletcher said in Lawrence County, the county government and local unions got involved. A group of bikers drove up and donated funds. Lawrence sent five buses full and $1,500 in donations.
“It got much bigger than what we expected, but I’m not surprised about the giving hearts,” said Moresea. “The fact that we had 20 bus drivers who wanted to go on this trip only solidifies the character of the people who work with kids every day and just their heart in general for others.”
Greenup County Schools Transportation Director Tom Crump said the buses left at about 6:45 a.m. from Greenup. They returned the buses to the garage around 11 p.m. Crump said they headed past Butler and into Eddyville where the Western Kentucky Education Cooperative worked to help those impacted get toys for their children for Christmas.
Crump said they didn’t travel into the most devastated areas, but as the caravan got closer, the views from the interstate gave a picture of what had happened and what had been lost.
Howard said there were 200 pallets ready in Butler on Monday. They ran out about halfway through the process and had to go get more. Howard said a pallet is a 4 foot by 4 foot square that is loaded 6 feet tall.
Hundreds of pallets containing water, cleaning supplies, toys, bikes, clothes, pillows and blankets are ready for those on the other aide of the Bluegrass State who need it.
Moresea said they took shelf-stable items that would help make it possible to keep supplying people for months. Flener said the donations will “most definitely” last for a couple months.
Flener asked that if anyone knows someone in need in western Kentucky to pass along the numbers of his office and the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative.
Judge-Executive Time Flener’s office is at North Main Street in Morgantown and can be reached at (270) 526 – 3433. The GRREC’s Executive Director is Bart Flener. The co-op is located in Bowling Green and the number is (270) 563-2113.
Katelyn Adkins
