WINDSOR, Ont. (July 4, 2005) — When a young lad in Harpersville, N.Y. heard talk around the playground that maybe Santa Claus didn’t exist after all, he sought solace from an unusual source. He turned to his Trucker Buddy, Pauline Nelson of Windsor, Ont.

“He was very upset about that, but I tried to cheer him up a little bit,” she says. Another of her young pen pals complained about an evil stepmother, while another wrote about her life in a foster home. “Sometimes they tell me personal things and you just try to make them feel good about their situations. I’m like a confidant.”

Trucker Buddy International is a non-profit outfit that matches drivers with elementary school classrooms in Canada and the U.S., as well as Mexico, France, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait. Founded in 1993, the organization now boasts 4,000 drivers communicating with more than 100,000 grade 2-8 students around the world. The Trucker Buddies send pictures, postcards, notes, letters, e-mails, or photos to the children in their assigned class each week so that the students can track the driver’s travel on maps in the classroom. In return, all the students write individual letters to their Trucker Buddy at least once a month.

Pauline and her husband Gary were recognized recently as one of a group of 12 Trucker Buddies of the Month for 2004 (October), along with two other Canadians: Calgary trucker Fred Steudle (June), and Anthony Slauenwhite of Bridgewater, N.S. (September). The trio is among 82 Canadians participating in the Trucker Buddy program.

The Nelsons — an owner-operator combo hauling freight between Windsor and Texas for Transport Robert — have been Trucker Buddies since 2003 and are currently corresponding with 75 grade 4 students in Harpersville, N.Y.

Calgary’s Fred Steudle was Canada’s first Trucker Buddy, and actually had his own program corresponding with a Calgary classroom when he heard about Trucker Buddy International. The Heyl Truck Lines driver contacted the organization in 1996 and decided to roll his own project into the broader Trucker Buddy program.

“The kids really provide a different perspective on driving because they’re unlikely to ever get a chance to visit all the places we talk about,” he says. “They think it’s amazing that we get to go to all these places, while we drivers just take it for granted.”

Anthony Slauenwhite, known to his class as Trucker Buddy Tony, first got involved with the program in September 2003, and has been corresponding with the same teacher, Bethany Milburn (grade 2) of Kennebunk, Maine, ever since. This year he has a class of 18.

Actually, Anthony shares the pleasure of being a Trucker Buddy with his wife Lucy (known as Big Mamma Lucy), a non-trucker with a full-time job at home in Bridgewater.

“I send along a handful of post cards every week, and at least one letter,” he says. “But Lucy e-mails the class everyday with news that I send home on the phone. She really does a terrific job of keeping us all in touch. And she’s a real pro at the Dollar Store.”

He says Howells Travel Center in Kittery, Maine, the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association, and his company, GTS Transportation of Dartmouth, N.S., all help by donating material to the cause.

highwaySTAR magazine’s own editor Jim Park was also a Trucker Buddy for two years prior to ‘retiring’ from active service. He had a class in Redmond, Wa. and really enjoyed the interaction with the youngsters.

“It really was quite a thrill sharing my travels and my observations from the road with the gang in Redmond,” says Park, who’s also a contributing editor to highwaySTAR’s sister publication Today’s Trucking. “What seemed pretty mundane to me allowed them a window into a world many of them may never see. Try describing the endless miles of Canadian prairie to a kid who lives in the Pacific Northwest.”

Trucker Buddy International is on the lookout for more Canadian Trucker Buddies. There are presently about 400 classes on the waiting list, so if any drivers or owner-ops think they might like to become a Trucker Buddy, call 800-MY-BUDDY or go to their website.