Soon after the inception of the Mountaineer Parents Club in 1995, some of the early New Jersey clubs began offering bus trip services to West Virginia University students that needed transportation back to the Garden State for Thanksgiving and Winter Breaks.

This weekend, the Mountaineer Parents Club and its local clubs will help a record number of students return to their families for Thanksgiving. Nearly 700 students will head home on the buses, which leave from the front of the Mountainlair or the Evansdale Residential Complex, on Friday.

“These clubs were so successful in planning buses for their own students that we began offering bus trip service, and additional destinations, as a convenient, economical and safe way for additional students to return home during Thanksgiving, Winter and Spring Breaks,” said Lisa Hanselman, associate director of the Mountaineers Parent Club.

Buses will travel from Morgantown to places like Hagerstown, Md., Allentown, Pa., Secaucus, N.J. and Philadelphia with the help of the WVU Motor Pool. In addition, some local clubs now run their own buses; Central Maryland, Northern Virginia, Long Island, N.Y. and Southern New Jersey all have holiday buses this year.

“Our goal is to make it easier for students to get home during breaks while reducing parents’ stress in getting their student home for the breaks,” said Ed McMahon, Southern New Jersey Club chair and Liberty Bell Alumni Chapter president. “The emails of appreciation from parents about this bus service have been overwhelming and are proof to me that the Mountaineer Parents Club is a very important part of WVU.”

The Mountaineer Parents Club will have a total of 13 buses departing from WVU for Thanksgiving Break, and for the first time, the Massachusetts Club will offer a bus home for Winter Break.

“This is a great opportunity for students from New England,” McMahon said.

The Mountaineer Parents Club has 66 local clubs since being established 16 years ago. A total of 38 clubs are in West Virginia. Others are located in Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. State chairs have also been established in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Texas.

The Mountaineer Parents Club is free and open to parents and family members of current, former and future WVU students. Some of the benefits include a toll-free helpline, newsletters, on and off-campus events, an interactive website and parent electronic news messages.

For more information visit the Mountaineer Parents Club at http://parentsclub.wvu.edu/.

-WVU-

ta/11/17/11

CONTACT: Lisa Hanselman, WVU Mountaineer Parents Club
304-293-2506, Lisa.Hanselman@mail.wvu.edu

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