TN: Kennedy: The secret push behind those bus stop benches

Have you wondered about those bus-stop benches popping up around town?

From Highway 153 in the north to the Georgia state line in the south, the colorful benches are showing up at CARTA bus stops as if they dropped from the sky.

Someone counted 127.

And it's not the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority, which runs the municipal bus line, putting them there.

No, the driving force behind the benches is Linda Hershey, a Chattanooga grandmother who leads a loose network of bench-builders that includes church members, community activists, high school students and scattered individuals.

Here's the story.

In the fall of 2023, Hershey, a semi-retired former court reporter, saw a Facebook post that piqued her interest. The post was by Corey Evatt, a local community activist and CARTA board member, who had built a one-off bus-stop bench for a older neighbor who sometimes had to stand for 20 minutes waiting for the bus on her way into the city for pottery classes.

Hershey decided to build another bench in honor of her daughter, Darby Standefer, who was celebrating her birthday at the time. Hershey asked Evatt to help her place it on Hixson Pike near the S-curves.

My daughter was turning 40, and she'd been talking about how sad it is seeing all the people who have to stand at bus stops," Hershey said in a telephone interview, noting that it's often the elderly or disabled who need public transportation.

From that humble beginning was born a grass-roots partnership to build benches for many of the city's 1,200 municipal bus stops, only a fraction of which have seating now.

After building her daughter's bench, Hershey brought in members of the Valamont Women's Club — of which she is president — to commission a few more, and by August 2024 she was presenting Evatt with a plan to build 100 benches, total.

One day Hershey asked her Facebook friends to sponsor benches for $50 each, and within two hours she had pledges for 70 benches. As a perk, she let each donor pick the color of their bench.

In November of last year supplies were delivered to four area high schools: the Early Technical College at Sequoya High School, East Ridge High School, Brainerd High School and the Harrison Bay Future Ready Center, where students stepped up to assemble the seating.

Contributed photo. Corey Evatt built this green bench as a birthday gift for her daughter, which started a push to add roadside benches to scores of CARTA bus stops in Chattanooga.

As of last week, Hershey's group of volunteers had built and painted 61 benches. Meanwhile, 25 more are being assembled, she said, and there's money in hand to construct 40 more.

A Hamilton County Schools administrator said it was a win-win proposition to involve students in the project.

"We are always looking for ways to connect kids with real-world projects, and finding solutions to challenges in our community," said Rachel Swafford-Cook, program coordinator for Hamilton County's workforce development and college schools. "In this case, I thought Linda's project sounded really awesome."

Hershey raises the money, buys the wood and delivers it to schools and churches. After the benches are built, Evatt sees that they are delivered to bus stops, taking care to place some of them where students can view their handiwork. He also secures them in place.

"Up to today, there has not been a single bench of mine or Linda's that's been moved or removed," said Evatt, adding, "The benches are coming from all over the place.

Evatt, a telecommunications analyst, has created a digital map with images of all the benches built by high school students that can be accessed at chattatransit.com/hcs.

Hershey said purple, orange, green and pink benches have been placed on the Southside, North Shore, Hixson Pike, Highway 58 and Rossville Boulevard. Home Depot and Elder's Ace Hardware stores have been partners in supplying building supplies, she added.

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