One busing service here in Benzie County has announced that they have officially started training their drivers to work with Carter Kits Sensory Bags.

Benzie Bus is a rural transit authority that provides curb-to-curb service for county residents, as well as Health Rides to the surrounding counties.

Toby Dunne, the Dispatch & Mobility Manager, tells us that this all started when he visited Center Wellness.

He states "So we started with the Carter Kits after I heard about it in a meeting with Center Wellness recently, because we transport a lot of people with disabilities, anxiety, to and from therapy sessions. We have quite a few autistic people here on our busses. So when I heard about this, I was obviously very excited because it's if anything happened and somebody gets sensory overload, then we can now actually help them."

The sensory bags come with headphones, weighted blankets, sunglasses, and sensory toys just to keep somebody with anxiety a little bit occupied and make the ride just a little bit easier for them.

Toby tells us that he believes the sensory bags will have a very positive effect on the passengers who are on the Autism spectrum, suffer from ADHD, anxiety, PTSD, sensitivity, mental health, and many other conditions, as it can distract them from their surroundings.

Toby states " just I feel really grateful that we just have that little bit extra to help people, especially because we have a lot of people that travel our busses to and from therapy appointments. So if there was loud noises from maybe school kids on the bus or something, that this this will definitely help make their ride a lot better and it will help them be less anxious about being on a public bus.

Currently, Benzie Bus has 24 vehicles, and Toby states that they hope to have a bag on every bus by the end of the month and that they will continue to train them once a year.