BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – DOZENS of bus drivers who provide invaluable service to the citizens of the Federation on a daily basis were shown appreciation on Friday (Apr. 16) by members of the business community.
Dare To Be Different (D2B Different), a subsidiary of KVK Enterprises, for the second consecutive year set up its Bus Drivers’ Appreciation booth between the Basseterre Bus terminal, Baker’s Corner and the St. Peters Bus Stop to distribute simple, yet meaningful tokens of gratitude to the public transport providers.
The appreciation package included light snacks, t-shirts and refreshing beverages.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of KVK Enterprises and Founder and President of D2B Different, Krystus Wallace, spoke to SKNVibes and said bus drivers are often taken for granted and after seeing no move to honour them, he decided to take the initiative himself.
“We have taken today to appreciate the bus drivers through our sponsors….While we think that there are other people in society who ought to be honoured, we would have monitored the situation over the years…and we don’t seem to see many of our bus drivers being honoured and actually appreciated.
“So we decided to be different - living up to our name - and come out and honour the bus drivers to just tell them thanks for all the work they have been doing. Because if you look at it, if many of them decided to park up their busses for a day or two, what will happen to the general public?”
Wallace said the response to this year’s initiative was positive and encouraging, as was the case last year. Speaking specifically to the bus operators’ response to the initiative, Wallace noted “this is the first time that I have seen many of them really smile.”
During short breaks between the disembarkation and embarkation of their passengers, the bus drivers stepped out of their vehicles to attain their tokens of appreciation. After collecting his package, Seymour ‘Dude’ Carey, a driver for the past eight years, spoke with SKNVibes and commended D2B Different and the sponsors for their gesture of gratitude.
“They are doing a good thing…I feel pleased. I feel really pleased because some people don’t appreciate us and it is good to see that these people and the sponsors appreciate us. What I would really love is others would show us appreciation now and again because, as far as I see, this is the first to do something like this.”
“I must give them thanks and to all who are involved and those who sponsored this event, I thank God for them because they realize that we are providing a service and the service is sometimes a heavy job. But all in all, I thank those who are involved,” said Vincent ‘Saga’ Jarvis, who has been driving public transport since the 1980s.
Steve ‘Swag It’ Francis said he feels good that someone realizes the lengths to which bus drivers have to go to serve their customers.
“I feel good about the appreciation because of the fact that the bus drivers have to go through a lot of tasks and sometimes we try to go out of our way to accommodate the passengers. Sometimes they want us to go to the limit but they must remember at the same time that we have other tasks to do.”
Whereas last year’s event was limited to bus drivers on St. Kitts, Wallace informed that as part of this year’s appreciation Nevis bus drivers will be honoured on Friday (Apr. 23).
Sponsors of the St. Kitts leg of the project included TDC Automotive, Horsford’s Automotive, St. Kitts Sea Turtle Monitoring Network and SK Fashion Plus.
