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Hudson charity will get buses for Katrina survivors after all

Upset at the Hernando School Board's refusal to donate old buses to a homeless shelter, a group raises more than $15,000 and buys three of the vehicles at auction.

By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published September 11, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - Julia Jinkens did a hopeful cheer Saturday morning in the middle of the parking lot where the big school auction was about to take place.

"Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar," the Brooksville Elementary cafeteria worker sang with both fists raised, "all for Holy Ground, stand up and holler!"

Jinkens was here on Varsity Drive off U.S. 41 as part of a group of energetic, charity-minded local folks who had collected donations to buy some of the buses the Hernando County School Board voted last week not to donate to help the Gulf Coast victims of Hurricane Katrina.

"And if we get 'em . . ." she started to say.

"We're gonna get 'em," said Kathleen Reitz, the executive director of the nonprofit Hernando County Education Foundation. "Don't even be saying that."

John and Debbie Druzbick were the leaders. John Druzbick is on the School Board, but he was sick on Tuesday night when his fellow members rejected a request to donate five buses to the Holy Ground homeless shelter, in Hudson in Pasco County, to help bring Katrina victims down here. The Druzbicks were outraged.

So they started to raise money.

Lots of it.

Enough of it, they hoped, to buy some buses and to have enough left over for tags, taxes and insurance.

They wanted the buses to help people in need; to make right what they saw as a wrong; to make some sort of statement, they seemed to be saying, about the overall character and commitment to community in the Hernando County they choose to know.

"Hernando County always steps up to the plate," Debbie Druzbick said Saturday. "We're not leaving without buses."

"And we're family beyond county lines," Reitz said.

"One big family," Jinkens added.

There were, in a long, tidy row, 13 yellow buses up for auction.

The Druzbick group wanted three.

But there was competition. There were companies from around the country that buy old buses to resell them or to lease them to factories and other businesses in Third World countries.

Debbie Druzbick told them about the Katrina-related effort in hopes they might back off. No such luck.

"They've got the cash to buy the whole . . . fleet," she said. "So we'll just see what happens. One bus is better than none."

All of this fuss had started Tuesday.

School Board Chairman Robert Wiggins and Pat Fagan voted yes. Vice Chairman Jim Malcolm and Sandra Nicholson voted no. John Druzbick was not there to cast a deciding vote.

The Druzbicks first went to fellow members of the business community - John Druzbick owns Custom Discount Blinds in Brooksville and Spring Hill - and then to the friends made over the 15-plus years they've lived here. That was a good start. But a story in the St. Petersburg Times about the fundraising efforts helped prompt even more giving.

One man, Al Alesso, a horse breeder from outside Brooksville, donated $5,000.

By late Friday night, the total was up to $15,191.71, Debbie Druzbick said, and the money still was trickling in, in 20s and 50s and 100s, on Saturday morning.

The auction started at 9 a.m. It took two hours to get around the parking lot, from old trucks to air boats to Chevy Cavaliers. The sun kept getting higher and hotter, and the man from the auction company was sitting on the top of a rolling white pickup, wearing a straw hat and doing that crazy-quick, tongue-garbled talk they do at these sorts of things.

Finally, just before 11, it was time for the buses. The group had cardboard signs they had made with fat black markers: Buses For Katrina Victims.

"This is getting exciting now," said Benny Martinez, a teacher from West Hernando Middle School and a member of the group.

The first bus, item No. 1109, sold for $2,700. Not to the group.

The second one, No. 1108, went for $2,400. Not to the group.

Then 1107 for $2,400, then 1106 for $2,600, then 1105 for $2,300. None of them to the group.

On 1104, though, Jeff Griffin, a pastor of a church in Pasco's Land O'Lakes and a volunteer at Holy Ground, kept making bids, all the way up to $2,600. The auctioneer asked for $2,700 . . . 27 . . . 27 . . . and didn't get it.

"Woo hoo!" Debbie Druzbick yelled.

The next one, 1103, went to Griffin, too, for $2,250.

"Woo hoo!"

And 1102, too, for $2,450.

"Woo hoo!"

"We're done," John Druzbick said. "We got three."

He hugged his wife. His wife hugged back. John Druzbick rubbed his eyes under his sunglasses, then walked away, toward the middle of the parking lot, where he could be alone.

Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or 352 848-1434.

[Last modified September 11, 2005, 01:12:04]