Searching for our School Bus

Levi and I have been searching for a school bus, but before I get into that, here is a quick Press Recap:

Last week I was on Canada AM news on CTV; here is a link where you can watch the interview from Friday morning- the newscaster introducer this as "the largest collaboration in filmmaking history." I brought our poster for the Road to Oprah too.

Also, here is an article from the Vancouver Province:

"Animator's One-Second Film an Internet Phenomenon" - Canada.com

Been doing lots of radio interviews as well.

The CTV interview was a funny experience; it was Friday the 13th and was scheduled for 5am so that it would be live on east coast morning time. I stayed up til 3am the night befor, launching the roadtooprah.com, slept an hour, and went on a 4am jog with Sarah, which was completely ridiculous. Then the news channel picked me up and took me to the studio where I had makeup done for the first time. Also ridiculous. Then I found out my makeup lady also did makeup for Richard Simmons! That put me in a pretty good mood.

After the interview, several of the folks in the news studio wanted to become producers, including Richard Simmons makeup lady (Patti Nicole Miller), which was awesome:

By the time I got home, we had received a bunch of new producers from Canada, which was pretty awesome- welcome everyone from Canada! :)

Then Levi and I drove up to Fresno to hopefully buy a school bus for the Road to Oprah. Levi’s truck broke down on the way so we were stuck on I-5, which totally sucks.

A nice tow-truck came and towed us to safety, and a friend picked us up. We came back home and took my car, which managed to make it up to Fresno.

Here are some of the busses we looked at:

These are old Gillig and Crown diesels from the 70's. Seeing these old busses really brought back some memories. Does this old sign look familiar?

These busses all belong to a character named Patrick who runs a non-profit Wheelchair Bus Project where he fixes up old school busses, loads them up with donated medical supplies, and then personally drives them down to South America to give to folks in need.

When Patrick says a buss full of wheelchairs, he literally means a bus full of wheelchairs...

Patrick is a cool guy, even if slightly crazy about school busses. His Wheelchair Project is especially awesome and very grassroots. You can see some pics of his project here. Unfortunately, none of the busses he currently has seemed in good enough shape to drive 10,000 miles in 45 days. Reliability is going to be a factor as we will have a tight schedule. So Levi and I have decided to keep looking.

On the way home, we saw this sweet Crown for sale on the side of the road:

it’s going for $3,000 and has new tires and batteries, but an electrical fuse had blown so we couldn’t test drive it. So after a long day, we returned home sans bus. I think my Richard Simmons make-up had all sweated off.

I’ve been pretty anxious this last week to find a bus. With less than 9 weeks to go, we need to get our ride in the next week or two in order to convert it and make it road-ready. Levi and I have been scouring the internet for leads... just when things were looking bleak, we finally found something that gives hope- there is a schoolyard auction next week 2 hours south with some busses that look to be in pretty good shape. Levi and I are going to the inspection early Tuesday morning… hopefully we will find a reliable bus we can afford! Time is ticking.

Last week, Juli and I put together our tour and sponsor kits and started calling schools and booking stops. We have a few stops confirmed and more coming in! I’ve been talking to folks all across the country that are helping set up events, and have been getting a great response. This trip is going to be a lot of fun/work :)

If anyone wants to help, we put together some kits to make it easy to share with a school or organization along our way. Just Check our Road to Oprah Tour Schedule and download our Tour Kit (PDF): http://roadtooprah.com/files/RoadToOprah_TourKit.pdf

We are working on some new features on the site and will be launching another round of press soon. The BBC contacted us about doing a story on us- which would be amazing- and a newspaper reporter is coming by our headquarters on Monday. Then Tuesday, the search for the bus continues.

Keep your eyes peeled for school busses!

best to all,

n