The continuing war in Ukraine has disrupted the education of many students, but for one school district, help is coming — all the way from Bucks County.

The Levy School Bus Co. in Trumbauersville is donating a school bus to the Solomonova school district in western Ukraine. This week, the bus made stops in towns served by Levy, including Quakertown, for drivers to sign their well wishes.

Warren Levy and the Levy School Bus Company is collaborating with professional car builder Jamie Orr and state Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-146, of Limerick, to make the donation possible.

In the Solomonova district, five out of seven schools have been shut down due to limited protection. Two open schools remain, but there are no buses, Orr said.

Students who are too far from these open schools have to walk a greater length to continue their education because of the lack of transportation. This is where Orr, Levy, and Ciresi come into play, to provide transportation as well as a sense of normalcy for students through a time of war.

Orr, who ships cars around the world, had an awakening when he took a Volkswagen to a car show in Poland, only five hours away from Ukraine.

After communicating with Ukrainian connections online and asking what he could do to assist them, they requested essential items such as shampoos, baby wipes, salt and noodles.

“It quickly turned into, ‘The mayor would like to meet you, the superintendent of the school district would like to meet you, and the headmistresses of the schools would like to meet you,’ and we did not expect that,” said Orr. 

The town of Chop, part of the Solomonova school district, approached Orr, “asking me ‘We know you work in logistics and we know you ship cars all over the world, could you help us with a school bus?'” he said.

During a car show in Pottstown to raise money for the effort, Ciresi approached Orr with curiosity about what was happening.

“I told him how we just got back from Ukraine and that we’re doing this show to raise money for this Ukrainian school district, and he said, ‘Here, let’s make a phone call,” said Orr. “Standing on the side of the road, he called Warren Levy and Warren immediately said, ‘Yeah, let’s talk about this, we can do something.'”

Bus 737, a brand new bus that the Levy School Bus Co. acquired, is now being put into motion to become the vehicle that will assist many students and teachers in need in Chop.

The bus is a 2013, 72-passenger bus, according to a company press release.

Len Pawlowski, operations manager at Levy, spoke on the journey that Bus 737 will be taking before finally reaching its destination.

Many former and current drivers of the company have begun to sign the bus with uplifting messages for the children to see when it crosses overseas.

“We have three different bus terminals; we’ve had it at our Custer’s location in Pottstown on Monday and Tuesday, and have had several drivers sign it on one side of the bus,” said Pawlowski on Wednesday.

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“Right now we’re working with Joe Ciresi on a definitive date where it needs to be scheduled to be put on the ship, so it’s going to be driven from our location down to Baltimore,” said Pawlowski. 

As the company is heading into its 96th year, Pawlowski stated, “This is definitely something new for us.”

Even though the area is far away from the front line, Orr said, “If the war does come to them, overload the bus, put every man, woman, and child on it as possible, and use it for evacuations.”

On the other hand, Orr has a hope for the bus in terms of the impact and utilization that can come in the future.

“When the war ends, they’ll still have an asset; for the first time ever this school district will have a school bus — take the kids on field trips and do something nice with it that you never had the opportunity to do.”