The vehicle previously provided by 911 Industrial (photo: Peace Area Riding for the Disabled Society / Facebook)

By Emily Keller

City Hall

City looking to donate vehicle to PARDS

Jun 10, 2020 | 2:19 PM

The Peace Area Riding for the Disabled Society (PARDS) may be receiving a vehicle from the City of Grande Prairie so that clients can travel to and from their lessons.

Jennifer Douglas, the Executive Director of PARDS, went before the Community Services Committee on Tuesday to request help from the City. She had previously written a letter to the City, noting that since the City’s takeover of running the Disabled Transportation Society (DTS) in November 2019, some clients had not been able to travel to their lessons due to a change in the services offered.

Douglas says they then secured a vehicle from 911 Industrial last year, with New Horizon CO-OP providing the fuel, to address the issue and anticipated that they would have only around seven or so clients needing the service.

“Once we secured that lease (with 911 Industrial) and got the bus going and offering it to our clients, we discovered that there were a lot more that were needing to be paying taxis to get out here or whatever method that they were using, so we ended up having thirty-eight riders in our last session that we were transporting every day.”

She says the bus recently broke down, and the cost of fixing it was found to be just under $20,000, which was too high for them and 911 Industrial to pay.

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Committee voted to recommend Council approve donating a vehicle to PARDS, that will be ready for the road in about two months’ time, to assist their clients.

Douglas says due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they fortunately do not require the vehicle right away.

“The bus that we had broke down the day before we actually had to suspend our lessons as a requirement from the province, so now that we have just over the last two weeks resumed our lessons, it’s done on a much smaller scale than it was pre-COVID.”

She adds that they really will begin to need the vehicle in September, so the timing of the donation from the City would be ideal.