Special Deliveries

Posted April 21, 2010

MANUEL LEDON was a truck driver for 16 years before a back injury forced him to leave his job. Then something happened that changed his career — and his life.

Manuel prayed for some way to get back behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler. “But God didn’t give me what I wanted—he gave me something better,” he says.

In 1989, he applied for a job with Collat Jewish Family Services, in Birmingham, Ala., as the driver for Buz-A-Bus, a transportation service for senior citizens and people with disabilities.  From the start, the job was a perfect fit for Manuel. His energy and cheerful demeanor made the simple act of traveling from here to there a joy for his loyal riders.

LaVenia Neal recalls the first day she was scheduled to ride Buz-A-Bus. “At 7:30 in the morning, my phone rang,” says LaVenia, who has been riding for two years. “And I heard, ‘Good morning, beautiful! How are you this morning?’” Manuel was calling to tell LaVenia what time he would pick her up that day to transport her to church. “I fell in love with him right then, because I knew I was in for something good.”

A Moving Community

Manuel’s unwavering cheerfulness has become contagious aboard the bus, whose riders run the gamut from lifelong Southerners to Russian immigrants. Some are Jewish and some are not—and are all driven by a Hispanic man from San Antonio with roots in Spain and Mexico.

Valentina Gutman began using the service in 1993, just days after she and her husband immigrated from the Ukraine. They wanted to take English language classes at the Levite Jewish Community Center and needed transportation. In stepped Manuel.

Like LaVenia, Valentina was charmed. “This was a difficult time for us,” she recalls. “But Manuel always helped. We would see signs on the road in English and ask Manuel what they meant, and he would tell us. He even learned some Russian.” Valentina, in turn, would bring Manuel homemade Russian delicacies, which he loved. “Manuel is a very unusual person. He’s always smiling, and he always wants other people to feel happy.”

Another senior enjoyed the bus so much that riding became a hobby in and of itself. “She would say, ‘Just drive!’” Manuel explains. “She didn’t want to go anywhere. She just wanted to be on the bus. And she would greet everyone who came on board.”

Going the Extra Mile

Though a recent neck injury has forced Manuel to take a hiatus he hopes is temporary, over the past 20 years he has done far more than either his employers or riders could have expected. There are hundreds of anecdotes about Manuel helping out in ways large and small: He once spotted a regular rider walking in a rainstorm without an umbrella. He quickly pulled over and hopped out of the bus and ran through traffic to get her inside. Another time, he provided a comfortable mat for a rider’s seeing-eye dog to rest on as they rode. He is known to get lunch for a hungry rider or run into the supermarket to grab groceries for another.

In recognition of his devotion and dedication to the seniors, Manuel was honored in 2002 with the Humanitarian Award from the Alabama Senior Citizens Hall of Fame. He had to be persuaded to attend the ceremony, because, as he said at the time, he felt he was just doing a job he loved.

“All of my seniors, they’ve been family to me,” Manuel explains. “One of the best things is to see them looking out the window for the bus, because they know they’re going to get out of the house and go wherever they want to go that day.

“They’re good people,” he continues, noting that when one of their own fell ill with cancer, the other riders delivered her hand-knitted scarves and hats.

Manuel says the hardest part of his job is when a rider passes away. “You start to feel something inside for each person, and then sometimes you lose them,” he explains. “But if I make them happy when they’re here, that’s what I want to remember.”

And the seniors definitely remember Manuel. “I’ve heard it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them and a day to learn to love them,” LaVenia says. “With Manuel, you appreciate him and love him for a lifetime.”

MANUEL LEDON is a Regions customer.

BUZ-A-BUS is a program of Collat Jewish Family Services, one of the many comprehensive services offered to seniors. CJFS is assisted by United Way, which is proudly supported by Regions.

Everyone has a story.