Volunteers Drivers with Tri-Valley Opportunity Council Fill Vital Need

Tri-Valley Opportunity Council’s Rural Transportation Collaborative (RTC) is a division of the agency’s public transportation department. The RTC office is located in Crookston.

RTC is a partnership program that coordinates volunteer drivers to transport those who have no other means of transportation or cannot drive. Volunteer drivers donate their time and are reimbursed the IRS rate per mile they drive to cover the expenses they occur while on the road (gas, car maintenance, insurance, etc.).

RTC is a curb to curb, mileage based public transportation volunteer driver program. People are transported for medical, dental, court, visitations and other approved purposes. Volunteer drivers are available seven days a week with extended hours.

The core service area for the RTC program is Polk, Red Lake, Pennington, Norman, Mahnomen, Marshall, Roseau and Kittson counties in Northwest Minnesota. There are working agreements with multiple other counties and have provided transportation to customers that have appointments as far as Minneapolis, Rochester as well as many North Dakota destinations.

RTC partners with social service offices, VA offices, clinics, schools, and many more to help the community to get to appointments that are needed.

In the 20 years that RTC has been operating at Tri-Valley, 10,629,790 miles have been driven. That’s 426½ times around the earth at the equator. In addition, over 358,531 hours have been donated by volunteers, the equivalent of 40.9 years of volunteering!

Going into 2024, RTC has been awarded a grant from Land of the Dancing Sky to help provide rides for consumers over the age of 60!

The program is always looking for more volunteer drivers to help the people in their communities. RTC has very flexible scheduling and is able to work with the volunteer’s schedules. Take pride in helping those in the communities, by becoming a volunteer driver! For more information on becoming a volunteer driver or receiving services, call 866-884-2695, visit www.tvoc.org, or email rtc@tvoc.org.