Washington man helps out truckers facing hardships

WOODLAND, Wash. (KOIN/CNN) – They’ve been called the “backbone of our nation” and long-haul truckers continue to roll strong in the face of the pandemic despite facing unexpected challenges.

Many truck stops no longer have available restaurants, food or shower facilities. Truckers KOIN spoke with have little choice but to boondock on the side of the road to get rest.

Woodland, Oregon resident Eric Hansen said, “All the restaurants are closed. They can’t get any hot food and they can’t go in to use the restrooms. they can’t get showers. And when they get to the distribution centers, because they have skeleton crews, there is seven to ten hours they are waiting and have two porta-potties.”

Hansen isn’t a trucker, but finds their situation unacceptable and came up with an idea to help. He convinced the Woodland School district to transform the high school into a full service I-5 truck stop, with parking, a gym to exercise, showers, even food. The food part of the equation is still a work in progress.

Hansen said, “The unfortunate thing is a lot of the restaurants in this town of about 5000 total, a lot of our restaurants are closed. They don’t have any food and some of them unfortunately don’t have the money to buy food, so it’s a shout-out to help these people as well.”

The local Starbucks is providing coffee and snacks and B. Young RV, which recently opened in Woodland, is donating several trailers in the effort.

About 50 school district employees ranging from principals to janitors have already volunteered and it’s only day one. Those volunteers tell me it feels good to support the dedicated driving professionals because without them our store shelves would be empty which is simply not an option, especially now.