Boca Raton, FL – Students of the Fuller Center, a not-for-profit organization focused on empowering children and families through education and family support, welcomed three 65-passenger school buses from Pine Crest School on June 9. The buses were donated at a critical time, as two of the Fuller Center’s five buses are currently inoperable, and a third is on the verge of disrepair.
The three school buses were driven onto the Fuller Center’s West Campus for the first time to the cheers of 150 Fuller Center students waving “thank you” banners.
The buses will allow Fuller Center staff to pick up children from approximately 12 local elementary schools after dismissal and transport them to the Center for after-care. The buses will also provide 350 children with the ability to participate in field trips and swimming lessons during the summer and school year.
Schools and other establishments that also need to provide transportation or shuttle services for their students or employees may consider purchasing used passenger buses for sale to save money.
Mr. David Clark, Head of Pine Crest’s Boca Raton campus and Chair of Fuller Center’s Programs Committee, and Mr. Joseph Markham, Pine Crest Vice President of Security and Support Services and Crisis Management Director, arranged the bus donation.
One of the Fuller Center’s buses is totally unusable, as a critical part cannot be obtained due to a supply shortage. A second bus has no air conditioning and is in such disrepair that the mechanic does not recommend fixing it. Finally, “Old Faithful,” the third bus, is on its last leg, making travel unsafe for the kids.
For more information about the Fuller Center and ways to support its children, faculty, and staff, please email Mary Coleman, Director of Communications & Marketing, mcoleman@fullercenterfl.org.
About the Fuller Center
For more than 50 years, the Fuller Center’s mission has been to embrace, educate, and empower hardworking, under-resourced families and children to reach their full potential. We build a positive future through education for the more than 900 children (infants through teens) that we serve annually, as well as 600 family members. The Fuller Center reaches families in 20 zip codes throughout Palm Beach County, as well as North Broward County.
Almost all Fuller Center working parents – 92% – serve as essential or frontline workers, working in hospitals, retail outlets, restaurants, and hotels. They are our bus drivers, store clerks and cashiers, farmworkers, delivery drivers, security guards, bank tellers, office workers, healthcare workers, and home health aides, hospital orderlies and cafeteria workers, and childcare and eldercare workers.
Our programs help empower children to start school prepared, succeed academically, and break the generational cycle of poverty through quality early childhood education, after-school and summer camp programs, our new private elementary school and teen leadership programs, and comprehensive, family-centered support services. They also empower parents who are essential to keeping our local economy open and who provide the vital services we all count on.
The Fuller Center also offers mentoring programs and adult on-the-job training, coaching, and employment support, and no-cost transportation from 12 area schools to our campus-based after-school programs. We serve more than 1,800 nutritious meals and snacks daily.
In addition, Fuller Center provides opportunities for local colleges and universities to place undergraduate and graduate students in internships and child development practicums.
East Campus: 200 N.E. 14th Street, Boca Raton
West Campus: 10130 185th Street South, Boca Raton