Senior Center receives loaner 4-wheel-drive bus in time for winter

The Wrangell Senior Center is receiving a loaner bus from Juneau, equipped to handle transporting passengers in winter weather.

The loaner bus arrived early Thanksgiving morning on the Kennicott ferry, part of the Catholic Community Service fleet. “It’s one of the newer ones,” said Solvay Gillen, site manager. “It has all the bells and whistles: A chairlift, four-wheel-drive.”

Catholic Community Service operates the Wrangell Senior Center.

April Huber, nutrition and transportation regional coordinator at Southeast Senior Services, a division of CSS, said the nonprofit has a few extra buses in Juneau it lends out to smaller communities when they have mechanical issues with their own buses.

“Most small sites only have one bus, but since Wrangell is the busiest small site (and the best in my opinion), they need extra buses,” Huber wrote in an email. The Senior Center will be able to keep the bus for at least six months, probably longer, she said.

The Senior Center only had one vehicle equipped to transport passengers, and it’s not four-wheel-drive. The other is used only for deliveries, as it is not insured to carry people. The loaner makes two passenger buses.

The center is trying to buy a new bus through a state grant from the Department of Transportation’s 2023 grant cycle, but factoring that and supply chain slowdowns mean a bus, once purchased, won’t touch wheels in Wrangell until 2024.

After hiring Jeff Rooney Jr. as a second driver last month, having the loaner bus now will address the Senior Center’s immediate concerns about winter weather and allow them to make more stops, and more often — better serving the 20 to 30 seniors who rely on the bus as their sole transportation, Senior Center bus driver Sara Aleksieva said.