Silver Rider Toy Box
Posted by Debbie Dauenhauer
Executive Director, SNTC
The Southern Nevada Transit Coalition (SNTC) is a 501C3 organization established in 2002, that provides public, senior, paratransit and medical transportation to residents and visitors in 10 rural southern Nevada communities. The SNTC operates under the brand name “Silver Rider.” System wide, the SNTC provides more than 550,000 rides each year, making the SNTC the largest provider of rural transit in the state of Nevada.
Our largest operation is located in Laughlin, Nev. Laughlin is a border town comprised of just more than 8,000 residents. The SNTC Laughlin operation employs 20 individuals. The SNTC provides the transportation with our funding partners – the RTC of Southern Nevada, the Nevada Department of Transportation and the Division for Aging Services (Nevada). In addition, the organization has been successful in leveraging the government funding it is awarded by securing additional private outside funding.
The Silver Rider Toy Box Program just concluded its third year of existence. The program and its partners provide new toys and food cards for less fortunate families in our local area. Last year the program provided toys to 120 families. This year, the need for assistance grew to such an extent that the program provided toys to 154 families — 373 children. Thanks to the sponsorship this year by a local private foundation, the BHHS Legacy Foundation, the SNTC was able to provide $5,000 in holiday food cards for a local grocery store to those less fortunate families in our communities.
The names of the children of the low-income families in our area are procured from several sources. All the families are income-qualified and meet federal guidelines for low-income and poverty-level income requirements. The names are provided by social service agencies in our area, such as, the United Way of the Colorado River, the Colorado River Food Bank, the Laughlin Family Resource Center, the Salvation Army of Bullhead City, Ariz. and the local police department.
All toys are wrapped for the children and distributed on the last Friday before Christmas. Santa makes his appearance annually at the bus depot located on Casino Drive in Laughlin. Santa and his volunteer elves present the child his/her gifts directly. In addition, Santa typically brings extra gifts for the good little girls and boys on toy distribution day. All presents are staged on one of our 40-foot fixed-route buses. The volunteer elves spend more than 200 hours each year selecting, purchasing, wrapping and distributing all the toys to those families.
The SNTC is a small organization – and we are quite proud of our ability to assist those less fortunate families so that they have a happy holiday season. The Silver Rider Laughlin family of 20 employees, their spouses and families and the volunteers, look forward to the Silver Rider Toy Box Program for 2008.
For anyone requesting additional information or to make a donation to next year’s program, contact Debbie Dauenhauer, executive director at 702-298-4435.