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Struthers senior-citizen transportation service returns
Photo
Struthers Mayor Terry Stocker sits in the driver’s seat of the new senior van, which city officials purchased from the village of Lowellville. They were able to do so with a donation from the Struthers Community Chest.
By EMMALEE C. TORISK
STRUTHERS
It’s back.
After a prolonged hiatus, the city’s senior-citizen transportation service once again is available, taking residents to and from doctors’ offices and banks, grocery stores and shopping centers, three or four days a week.
“It’s had so many ups and downs,” said Struthers Mayor Terry Stocker.
Stocker recalled that troubles began in mid-March, when the 1997 Dodge van the city had been using to transport its senior citizens was pulled out of service. With a door hanging from two hinges instead of three and a lift so badly rusted it could no longer transport passengers in wheelchairs, among other issues, it was deemed not roadworthy — and the city was without a van.
Luckily, Struthers officials had been planning to apply for a brand-new 12-passenger van, complete with a wheelchair lift and two wheelchair positions, through the Ohio Department of Transportation’s Specialized Transportation Program. With a situation more dire than expected on their hands, they did so shortly afterward.
In late August, the city learned it had been approved for the van, with the state funding 80 percent of the approximately $60,000 cost. Officials already had budgeted $23,000 this year for senior-citizen transportation service operations and the matching grant funds.
A problem arose, however.
The van’s expected delivery is next year, likely in July or August, Stocker said.
In came a $3,500 donation from the Struthers Community Chest, which funded the purchase of Lowellville’s decade-old van to be used in the interim. It was the nonprofit organization’s community project.
Almost immediately, the van, which Lowellville stopped using when it received a new one earlier this year, was emblazoned with the words “Struthers Senior Transportation” and a Wildcat decal, and it was ready to go weeks ago.
But, before the van could make its official return to the road, out popped another hurdle: engine problems. Stocker explained that Lowellville refunded some of the money paid for the van to offset repair costs, and said he’s grateful to the village’s mayor, James Iudiciani Sr., and members of council for “taking care of their problems, which were our problems.”
“We were able to get the van up and running,” Stocker noted.
Tuesday was the van’s first day of operation.
On Monday, Shirley Sepesy, executive secretary to the mayor, said seven residents already were signed up to use the service on the following day. She added that the van will run through Friday this week and Wednesday through Friday of next week; the schedule will continue to alternate as such in the coming weeks.
Though the senior-citizen transportation service was previously run on donations, it likely will now carry with it a nominal fee, Sepesy said — maybe $2, which will go toward the cost of gas and insurance, for example.
She said, too, that those who use the service “definitely depend on it a lot,” and that she’s glad to see it back.
“It’s an opportunity for them just to get out without relying on family or friends,” she noted. “They don’t like to be a burden on anybody. It gives them back their independence.”
For more information about the service, contact the mayor’s office at 330-755-2181, ext. 110.