Nice story from a Pinehurst neighbor about an amazing Pinehurst business:
Big Love and Gratitude to Bark Espresso
My 6-year old son attends an on site after school program at Olympic View elementary three days a week and goes home on the bus two days a week.
Last week he was inadvertantly sent home on the school bus when he should have gone to afterschool care. No one at the school or the afterschool care program realized he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. We did not discover that he was missing until I arrived to retrieve him at 5:30 PM nearly two hours after school had been let out.
I began to realize that things could be very, very bad. Was he snatched from the playground? Lost? How could this have happend?
Luckily we had an emergency back up plan for him in the unliklely event that we were not at the bus stop on the days that he’s schedualed to come home.
It’s Bark Espresso on Roosevelt. We had established this place for him as a backup because it’s very close to his bus stop, the barista’s know him and it’s near our house.
That’s exactly where he was. The barisata Bosha had hooked him up with a steamer a cookie and he was waiting for me a little scared but ok.
I sent this post for two reasons. The first is because we are so grateful to Bark for looking after our little guy and keeping him safe. The second is a warning to parents about the need for a backup plan!
Even though it was scary, our son knew what he was supposed to do and he did it. This could have gone a million diffrent ways if he got off that bus and had no instructions. Our lesson was that he now carrys a laminated card with our cell phone numbers on it. We never anticipated that he would be alone so long when we concevied our school bus plan.
Thanks again to Bark.
So cool…thanks for the reminder!!
The old saying “it takes a village” comes to mind. Great ending in this case. Hope you notified the school and child care.So many balls dropped here. Teacher for putting him on a bus, childcare for not notifying you he was absent, bus driver for letting him off the bus without an adult present to walk him home. I’m actually pretty disturbed.
I love this story! I mean, terrifying to not know where your kid is, definitely an issue that the kid was misplaced, but great that it turned out okay…like things like this do EVERYDAY…instead of what we see in the 24hr news cycle. I’m so glad the tone of the post is that of thankfulness & preparedness, not one of anger & fear.
@Tabitha- I saved may anger for the school and the district!
I work at a school. By the grace of God more students are not lost. The shuffle at the end of the day, kids telling you one thing and something different supposed to happen, substitutes (teacher and bus), etc. Good for you for having a plan. Everyone should. This is even a good plan if you have an elderly person in your life.
Bark! is a great place. Awesome coffee, great place to work/study, and fabulous doggie hangout room with a couch and tables.
I lived in a town that had “safe houses”–possibly checked out by police (I could look into it)–which had a blue light in the window when the people were home.
Anyone, but especially women and kids could go there if they were in trouble–from locked out to being followed or worse.
Do we have anything like that here? I’d love to participate if so. Maybe Nancy R. knows?