The year 2022 came with ups and downs, as most years do. We continued to be cautious and keep all of our clients safe, while providing services at a rate equal to pre-pandemic times. A.s we have said many times throughout the year, Dial-A-Bus is not just a transportation service. Our whole team went the extra mile to make sure our clients were cared for.
We sponsored a Boys and Girls Club basketball team for underprivileged youth and our Executive Director personally coached the team.
Helped purchase school, art, science, and sports equipment for low-income students in Philomath.
Performed wellness checks with our clients which resulted in 23 necessary 911 calls for people who were injured or sick.
We expanded our services to Linn County to help reduce the transportation barrier for folks in rural areas who need help getting to medical appointments and other essential services.
We drove community members to and from micro shelters around town.
Expanded hours for children who wanted to participate in extracurricular activities.
Many children were given rides to and from school and other nonprofit organizations with drivers who understand their needs and care about them.
Over 300 rides were given on average each day.
We made the holidays special. We provided gift cards for food for families in need, invited clients we’ve known for years to have Thanksgiving with us, collected toys for CASA for Christmas, and called our clients to see who would be alone or hungry on Christmas Day and invited them to spend the day with us instead.
Without our amazing community of donors, volunteers, and our staff, we would not have been able to provide any of the services listed above. Thank you to every single person who donated or signed up for one of our free ways to give. Whether you raised $10 through Amazon Smile or donated a matched gift on Giving Tuesday, we couldn’t do it without you! A special thank you to those who went above and beyond to make a difference in people’s lives:
Pete and Sara Blanchfield’s donation helped get two families in need into apartments.
Kiefer Nissan, along with many individual donors, helped us to purchase four vehicles to serve our most vulnerable clients including children facing home insecurity.
An anonymous donor gifted us with a wheelchair van.
$1500 from Evergreen Dental as our first sponsor.
$3,500 from Joel McCready.
$5,000 from Ted and Kelly Miracco.
Over $11,000 from Power of 100+ People Who Care of Benton County.
Along with finding new ways to benefit the community, we also found new employees, volunteers, board members, and ways to share information.
We completely redesigned our website and added important information about our services with a services page and an updated FAQ section.
We hired a new dispatcher, Kaitlyn Grady. She found us through our listing on Indeed and we couldn't be happier. She is a great fit for the role with her history of working with nonprofits and their clients. Kaitlyn is excited to get to know all of our clients and help people in our community.
Lorena Reynolds, a local attorney who has done amazing work in the community, joined our Board of Directors. She joined because she "wants to live in a community where everyone can access all the many wonderful services, programs, and connections that we have with as few barriers as possible."
Six new volunteers and one returning volunteer joined our drivers.
Our volunteers drove over 40,000 miles while volunteering for over 2,700 hours throughout the year.
And finally, in 2022 we became easier to support than ever before. We updated our website donation form and added three new ways to give, one of which won’t even cost you a cent!
We updated our website donation page with all the ways to give and we upgraded the donation form so that you can donate in just a few clicks.
You can sign up to support us with your regular grocery purchases from Fred Meyer. Click here to select Dial-A-Bus as your Fred Meyer charity and they will donate based on your purchases.
You can now donate through Venmo! We have our own account through the app and our website donation form accepts Venmo payments.
With Walmart Round Up, you can donate spare change by automatically rounding up your orders to the nearest dollar at checkout! Click here to sign up.
While there have been many updates to our organization this year, some things haven’t changed. For well over a decade, Dial-A-Bus has been proud to be the community provider of special transportation for community events such as:
ADA transportation for OSU academic and athletic events.
ADA and shuttle transportation for the Fall Festival and other community events.
Safety transportation for community and private celebratory events.
Low-cost or free transportation for educational and recreational trips for community groups such as the Senior Center, The Boys and Girls Club, grade-school groups, and more.
Thank you for helping us to make 2022 a wonderful year. We look forward to 2023 and all the ways we can continue helping this community.