Intercity Transit’s Discounted Bus Passes Help Non-Profits, Like GRuB, Serve Clients

grub olympia
GRuB provides students an opportunity to lead farm and community work while learning leadership and life skills. The program is designed to help students grow and succeed in school, life and future employment.
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By Lisa Herrick

intercity transit
Intercity Transit offers a Discounted Bus Program to qualifying non-profits and human services organizations which helps youth in our community get to the places they need to go to be successful in their lives.

“Sometimes the difference between success and failure is an individual’s ability to get where he or she needs to go,” says Ann Freeman-Manzanares, Intercity Transit General Manager.

Intercity Transit, the public transportation provider in Thurston County, strives to provide transportation choices that support a vibrant community and help people access jobs, school, and other services. And their Discounted Bus Pass program does just that.

Here’s how it works. Local, non-profit human service organizations qualify for the program through a grant application process. Once awarded, they purchase Intercity Transit monthly bus passes at a 50-percent discount. They then give the passes to their low-income clients to help with their unmet transportation needs.

Olympia’s Garden Raised Bounty program (GRuB) is one of the 18 program recipients for 2015. GRuB’s Youth Programs Lead Educator, Wade Arnold, says, “We serve youth who live beyond a reasonable walk’s distance away from GRuB. The reality is that age, income, and other barriers have prevented a large majority of youth in our programming from going through driver’s education and having a vehicle to drive or to have someone consistently take them to and from the GRuB Farm. Without the Intercity Transit’s Discounted Bus Program we would really be constrained in meeting our mission to serve disengaged youth,” adds Arnold.

GRuB inspires positive personal and community change by bringing people together around food and agriculture. They partner with youth and people with low-incomes to create empowering individual and community food solutions through tools and trainings to help build a just and sustainable food system. They offer GRuB In The School where students can earn credit by leading farm and community work for GRuB and learning leadership and life skills. The program is designed to help students grow and succeed in school, life and future employment.

Arnold further explains, “The grant from Intercity Transit allows us to put our fundraising efforts toward student stipends, program operating costs, and for expansion of programming. With Intercity Transit’s reach and the Discounted Bus Program we can get to a place where we can impact more of the community, and more individuals.”

grub olympia
GRuB offers programs to engage youth while they earn school credits by learning about and contributing to local community food solutions.

Arnold shares an example of how youth are often looking for jobs once their summer employment ends with GRuB. “Without reliable transportation, their ability to get and hold a successful job is more challenging,” he notes. “The same goes for accessing community resources, health care, getting to personal enrichment and community engagement opportunities. They are given an opportunity to be more independent and to be stronger and more confident self-advocates if they can get places.”

Blue Peetz current teacher at Olympia High School (OHS) and founder of GRuB, leads the “GRuB-inspired” Freedom Farmers Program at OHS.

Peetz comments, “Our farm site is off campus and student involvement includes a seventh period that takes us late in the afternoon. Students do not have access to rides home on school buses after school.  With Intercity Transit’s support, we are able to offer discounted monthly bus passes to our students.  This is incredibly helpful because many of our students may have challenges affording bus passes on their own.

“Furthermore, our summer job training program also requires students to independently get to the farm on their own — and then back again,” Peetz explains. “Again, Intercity Transit’s discounted bus passes are a huge resource for our students and ensures their ability to participate in our program while also building the skill set to responsibly transport themselves to a job site. Intercity Transit has been phenomenally supportive of our program.”

grub olympia
GRuB provides meaningful and relevant leadership and learning experiences for youth on important issues in our community.

The Discounted Bus Program began as a pilot project in 2011 and is now in its fifth year. The Intercity Transit Authority currently dedicates up to $200,000 in monthly passes to this program annually. To qualify, organizations must serve clients within the cities or urban growth areas of Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater, or Yelm. Through their applications they must explain how the passes would benefit their clients and the community and demonstrate a direct link between transportation and their ability to deliver their services.

For many of the applicants’ clients, lack of transportation is a primary barrier to living a full, healthy life. Freeman-Manzanares comments, “Affordable and accessible transportation allows individuals to lead full and healthy lives, getting to school, work, food, healthcare, shelter and other services. Through these programs, people can have access to the services they need so they can be as successful as possible. That’s good for the individual and our community as a whole.”

“We are pleased to have the opportunity to partner with organizations such as GRuB to help address their transportation needs, so they can focus on providing the services their participants need,” continues Freeman-Manzanares. “This program is one of the many ways we work with local partners to help address the unmet transportation needs of our community. Many of the people who use our service through this program may not otherwise be able to make these trips because of the cost and lack of other transportation options.”

For a complete list of the 2015 Discounted Bus Pass recipient organizations and to learn more about the program visit intercitytransit.com or contact Ann Freeman-Manzanares at 360-705-5838.

To learn more about GRuB visit goodgrub.org or contact Wade Arnold at 360-753-5522.

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