It sounds like a dream to many college students—getting a bunch of friends together and traveling cross country in an old school bus, stopping at many of America’s known and unknown landmarks. One Gloucester High School graduate is working to make this dream a reality.
Steven Hascher, a 2008 GHS alumnus and a recent graduate of George Mason University in Fairfax, has helped organize a project that will put him and four others in a converted school bus for a year-long journey that will hit the road in January, headed for the West Coast.
On the way, the group will find inspiring and creative people across the country and share their stories. "We’ll share their stories on our website, www.bus52.com, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks in an attempt to reach all age groups and cultures," Hascher said.
Recently coming on board with the project, he said he and his friends "are all at the point in our lives where we really don’t know what we truly want to do." Each of the team members, he said, are recent college graduates that share a passion for journalism, exploration and film.
"Every day, there are hundreds of stories that flood the media and usually those stories are reporting bad news," Hascher said. "We want to highlight the people that are interesting and doing creative things to help their communities, whether it is something big or something small." He said he and his friends believe there is no better way to do that than to travel across the entire country.
"We want to break down stereotypes and show what it is like to live in each state," he added. "There is a lot of good that happens throughout the day in our country and we want to highlight the good."
Even though a lot of what the group will be sharing will be through status updates and blogging, the majority of the project will be presented via video, Hascher said. "Each week, we plan to create a webisode containing the personal profile pieces we do for that week, as well as footage of us traveling and exploring," he said.
With the present state of the economy, Hascher said it is very hard to fund a family vacation, let alone a year-long cross-country trip. "Luckily for us, we have had some great companies sign on so far to help out," he added.
The project is also a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, so all donations made to it are fully tax deductible. "Although we have already received many donations, we are always looking for more companies to create a partnership with, as well as any individual gracious enough to give five recent grads any kind of donation to complete our mission," Hascher added.