BWB Comes Together to Send a Tool Bus to Haiti

The journey of the bus began with an idea from Sean “Jinx” Pace of Asheville, NC. Jinx is an artist and works with BioDiesel and is generally a really cool, interesting guy.  The plan was to have a tool drive, pack the bus as a shipping container and then modify the bus in Haiti as a flat bed and people mover for projects. We pitched the idea to the BWB community, knowing that Nathan and the Reno BWB community had thrown an awesome fundraiser for Haiti.  It turns out Kyle Larrain, a Tahoe kid, Heavy Equip worker and Pisco volunteer alumni  worked the fundraiser and then came and spent a month at GRU in June.  Its just such a crazy small world. Reno BWB paid for the bus in Asheville and Sam Jane Bullock & Jinx and the Asheville crew held a tool drive for about a month at the Phil Mechanic Studio in Asheville.

In early May, Sam Jane & I went to Asheville and picked up the bus and drove it Miami.  No one could manage to get the governor off the engine, so we clipped along at a brisk 50 mph all the way to Florida!

The bus then vacationed for a few weeks in the parking lot of McCollister Transport, a shipping company in Miami that donated the storage space to us.  We had been promised a donation of shipping, but the customs situation in Haiti was really dire at the time.  Literally, Haitian Customs were holding up shipments for the UN and the government changed their rules on fees & processing at a schizophrenic pace.  At that point, we heeded the advice of some colleagues and waited to ship the bus, which was wise. The time to ship the bus came in July and I spent week in Florida, again, compiling donations and prepping & inventorying the bus.

The South Florida Burner crew stepped up, again, and gave a hand with the inventory and shipping preparations.  Jack Trash and the Ft Lauderdale warehouse crew, aka the most amazing people on Earth, were having a work day for their playa vehicle, the Nauti Bus, and we all worked together on both buses.

Amanda & KK were there in full force, too.  KK & Jack Trash led the group to empty the bus, we cleaned it and then protected the windows(and cargo) by covering the inside of the windows with plywood.  We inventoried and loaded and were ready to go – it was a long day, but many hands make light work!

The bus came to Haiti via the port of St Marc, about 2.5 hours north of Port au Prince.  After a false start (the shipping company told me the bus was en route and it in fact, had not been loaded yet?!) We cleared the bus through customs within a week, which is pretty incredible in Haiti and its been working ever since.  I drove the bus on her maiden voyage in the bus to do a supply delivery to Belvue Camp in the commune of Belvil in Port au Prince.

GrassRoots United has been using the bus regularly to support the medical supply depot we have on property, orphanage distributions and much more.

Thank you to everyone who made this amazing project possible. We couldn’t have done it without you!

-Brenda Zimmerman