Bus driver invests in hats and gloves for kids along his route who don’t have winter gear
Kennewick, Washington gets some frigid winter weather. And while most of us simply dislike the cold, imagine not having the ability to dress properly to protect yourself.
That’s a fact of life for some kids in the city (and every other city, for that matter).
Kids outgrow expensive outerwear quickly and it can be hard to keep up with boots and coats.
They also lose gloves, scarves, and hats easily (don’t we all?), but without them, they risk frostbite.
John Lunceford knows what this problem looks like first-hand.
He’s a school bus driver in Kennewick and picks up freezing kids from the curb where they wait for him each morning.
Not content to simply get them on the nice warm bus, this generous driver went one step further to ensure they’d be warm when they walked off the bus as well.
It all began with a little boy who got on his bus one day in tears in 2016. With chapped hands and a red face, he was miserably cold. Lunceford gave him his own pair of gloves to wear so that he could warm up safely.
“I put my gloves on him and told him it’ll be OK, it’ll be OK,” said Lunceford, a U.S. Army veteran.
But the incident made him think about all the other needy children on his route.
So when he finished work that day, he headed to a dollar store to pick up some winter gear – hats and gloves – to hand out to kids in need. He even tracked down the little boy from his morning route to give him a new set.
As a grandfather, Lunceford says that it really affects him when he sees kids suffering this way.
He also went to the school library and asked the kids there if they needed extra hats or gloves. One little girl responded enthusiastically and Lunceford knew he had to keep doing this good deed.
But he was never keen on making a big deal about it, even when the school posted his photo and story to their Facebook page and it went viral in 2016.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” he said. “I just did a nice thing for a kid.”
Lunceford doesn’t particularly like attention and he doesn’t understand why such a simple gesture is getting so much attention.
“I wasn’t doing it for popularity. I did it because it was the right thing to do. That’s the way I was raised.”
He also pointed out that this is something plenty of other bus drivers and school staff do to protect the kids they see every day.
“There are bus drivers who buy shoes for kids that need them,” he told Inside Edition. “We all really like the kids.”
Regardless of whether a child is missing outwear because they forgot it or don’t own it to begin with, Lunceford will hand out his hats and gloves to anyone in need.
“I’m an old softie,” he said.
Be sure to scroll down for the school district’s original viral post about their generous bus driver.
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