The Road Ahead

News from the Transit Frontier

Summer 2026

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Total Network Numbers

Rides: 1,767,209

Miles Driven: 8,796,730

Riders: 19,113

Volunteers: 3,686

Network Sites: 251

America’s Volunteer Driver Center

America’s Volunteer Driver Center Launches!

On June 16, ITNAmerica officially launched America’s Volunteer Driver Center (AVDC), a national public information campaign with an ambitious goal: recruiting 150,000 volunteer drivers to help older adults and people with mobility challenges remain mobile, independent, and connected in their communities.

The launch marks an important milestone for ITNAmerica and comes exactly 30 years after the national nonprofit provided its first ride in Portland, Maine. Since then, ITNAmerica and its national network have supported more than 1.75 million rides for older adults and people with mobility challenges across the country.

Over those three decades, ITNAmerica has learned two important lessons. First, older adults and their families value the unique type of nonprofit transportation provided by volunteer drivers. It is friendly, reliable, community-based, and fundamentally different from public transportation and commercial rideshare services. Second, demand for these services continues to grow as the population ages, while many nonprofit transportation providers struggle to recruit enough volunteer drivers to meet that need.

America’s Volunteer Driver Center was created to help address this challenge.

Every day, older adults across the country need transportation, while countless people who would gladly volunteer remain unaware that local nonprofit transportation programs need drivers. AVDC was designed to bridge that gap.

“Volunteer drivers make independence possible,” said Katherine Freund, Founder and President of ITNAmerica. “They help older neighbors get to medical appointments, pick up prescriptions, buy groceries, stay connected, and continue living in the communities they know and love. America’s Volunteer Driver Center gives people across the country a simple way to help.”

Through a national public information campaign, AVDC introduces prospective volunteer drivers to nonprofit transportation providers serving their communities. By raising awareness about volunteer transportation and making it easier for people to get involved, the campaign seeks to change the way Americans think about and support community mobility.

At its core, AVDC is built around a simple belief: if Americans will volunteer to give blood, they will volunteer to give someone’s mother a ride to the supermarket. ITNAmerica envisions America’s Volunteer Driver Center becoming to volunteer driving what the Red Cross is to blood donation—a trusted national entry point for people who want to serve.

Interested in becoming a volunteer driver? Learn more at www.AmericasVolunteerDriverCenter.org or sign up at https://americasvolunteerdrivercenter.org/get-involved/volunteer.

AVDC is funded through a combination of public and private support. If you would like to help sustain and expand this national effort, please consider making a contribution to ITNAmerica.

Featured Volunteer Driver and Rider

Jim Burbine- Volunteer Driver Profile

Jim Burbine retired at 56 from the one and only job he ever had—the newspaper business. He started delivering newspapers when he was 9 years old and by the time he retired he was in charge of distribution for the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the New York Post, the Daily News and many others. Jim describes his career as rewarding “during the heyday of newspapers.”

Jim and his family first visited Maine from Massachusetts 19 years ago during a summer vacation and fell in love with a seacoast town called Harpswell. Seven years ago, they moved here permanently. But after a while, like so many other retirees, Jim felt he had “time on his hands, a void to fill.” He looked around for volunteer opportunities and found People Plus in Brunswick, Maine. When he learned they needed volunteer drivers, he stepped up. He said, “that’s what I wanted to do is to give back a little bit while I’m still healthy and able and help those that had a need. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 7 years.”

Just as he once did in the newspaper business, Jim kept moving up. It is no surprise he is now the Chairman of the People Plus Board of Directors. Once a leader, always a leader.

Volunteering to drive has also been an opportunity for Jim to make new friends. “I have this fellow who I’ve become very close to, who is legally blind, who I do a lot of transportation for, and I take him to his appointments” Jim said.

It is actually more than rides for appointments. Jim went on, “I take him to local lunches, and we have lunch together with 70 other guys. It’s an organization in Harpswell called ROMEO, which is an acronym for Retired Older Men Eating Out. And there’s 70 to 80 of us that get together once a month to have this free lunch at the Orrs Island Schoolhouse on Orrs Island in Harpswell. These older men are widowed, or widowers, and stuck in their homes. It’s amazing to see them all together, and how they thrive, and the socialization piece of things. I transport people to that as part of the transportation that we do through PeoplePlus.”

Googling ROMEO’s will take you down enough internet rabbit holes to spend a delightful few hours, with many communities taking credit for starting the movement. One ROMEO or another, it is clearly a grass roots movement for people—men—to get together. The key is being together, in person, breaking bread, that human social experience, and not alone.

Clearly, volunteer transportation is far more than a ride to medical appointments. If you would like to learn more about volunteering to drive in your community, check out America’s Volunteer Driver Center. And let us know if you would like any help finding your local ROMEO.

John Bennett – Rider Profile

John Bennett teaches cello at the Portland Conservatory of Music. John is 81, and he is gradually losing his vision, so he had to stop driving. Sometimes his wife drives, sometimes John takes the bus, and sometimes he walks. But on Sunday, he takes ITN’s nonprofit transportation service to Falmouth, the next town north of Portland, because Saint Mary’s church has the music he likes.

John says music is a mental, spiritual, sensory (auditory) and physical experience. His body physically expresses what his mind, spirit and senses understand and create. He explained this matter-of-factly as I was driving him to church one Sunday morning. For reasons I don’t understand, I can only listen to simple music with poetic words, and it is the melody and the poetry I can absorb and appreciate. But looking at the expressions on the faces of people who listen to symphonies, who really appreciate the music, has taught me I am missing something wonderful. I explain my condition as being color blind in my ears.

John’s description came the closest to helping me understand what people who love music are experiencing. I’m telling this story because John is such a beautiful living example of how the people who use volunteer transportation are often so casually interesting, kind, and generous.

John started playing cello in elementary school, continued playing all the way through high school, and went to college on a music scholarship. But somewhere along the way, he left college and went to work for the U. S. Postal Service. He continued playing in the community orchestra, and when he left the post office after 22 years, he taught music at all levels. His students range in age from 5 to 18.

John moved to Maine from California. Here he continues to teach and to play his cello, which he says is the instrument closest to the human voice, and the instrument you play while you are hugging it. He says there are two kinds of music—good music, and the rest of it.

John was referred to ITN by a geriatric nurse practitioner. He made the decision himself to stop driving, even though it was anything but easy for him to do, because he didn’t want to be stubborn. He wanted to be realistic, and he didn’t want to hurt anyone. I am so glad he did, so he can be safe, too. I am happy to drive him to St. Mary’s so he can enjoy the music.

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