On Thursday 9th May, it finally happened – our new electric minibus arrived.
Nicknamed Stevie, they have settled in well and are already best friends with our electric people carrier, Evie.
The long fundraising road
We started our fundraising campaign back in 2022 when some of our youth panel, volunteers and supporters took part in the Kiltwalk. Following this we ran a crowdfunder which received over 60 pledges. We were lucky to receive grants from the Giving Group at Walter Scott and Partners, the Robertson Trust and the Clothworkers Foundation to enable us to finally reach the whopping target of almost £80,000 to achieve our goal of adding an electric minibus to our fleet.
Because of the lack of electric minibuses available we ended up purchasing an electric van which was then converted to a minibus. We waited patiently for the conversion and remained patient while the conversion went through the process of receiving approval from the DVSA. All in all the process took much longer than we had hoped for. However, good things come to those who wait and below is a photo of the moment it arrived, to great excitement:
We think this picture is great – it is a couple of young people who were about to go out on a project and they were so excited. Their project group sat on the old diesel minibus, ready to leave for the day but they all started chanting “new minibus, new minibus”. We agreed that they could unpack all their kit, repack it on the new minibus and be the first group out in it! It was a lovely moment.
Our fleet in all its glory
The minibus has had lots of use since and it is already enabling us to run more sessions while also reducing our carbon footprint. We have now had branding added and are ready to unveil Stevie in all his glory:
A big thank you to everybody who contributed to our fundraising, shared our appeal posts, or simply sent us positive vibes – our work is only possible because of the generosity of others and we couldn’t have raised the money without you.
