With many people stuck without transportation to major centres, some residents of Gravelbourg banded together to get on the road.

The Gravelbourg Cares Shuttle Service is an organization that asks for suggested donations for those who makes trips with them.

Lynn Holmes is one of the members of the shuttle service. It's a way to help people get to their specialists' appointments, according to Holmes.

“We have a hospital, we have the doctors and the dentists. We have a good medical community,” she said. “But those individuals, whenever there’s a specialist needed, they have to send their patients to the cities, because there isn’t a specialist in the small towns. We’re finding that the medical community is certainly making more and more referrals.

They have suggested donations for their trips rather than regular fares. The formation of Gravelbourg Cares came out of a need in the community.

“Our community really did some together,” she said. “it’s interesting that when we started this that it was just a little over one year in terms of it’s idea, in June of 2018, and now here we are in July on 2019. And on July 1 we actually started putting the rubber to the road.”

While they have had only a few people getting rides so far, they don't expect the low participation rate to continue.

“We found that there’s lots of people calling and there’s people taking the bus,” she said. “But we have not filled the bus completely yet. Most of the times we have been two people going. The surprising part is that our smaller communities that surround us, whether it’s Mankota, or Lafleche or Shamrock, or even Hazenmore. They have been calling.”

Thanks to Holmes and other volunteer drivers, the service is doing weekly trips to Moose Jaw  and Regina and may also do trips to Assiniboia and Swift Current.