As the bus driver for students in kindergarten through second grade at Hutchens Elementary School, Kyle Young’s friendly face marks the beginning and the end of each kid’s day. They see his face when they get on and off the bus in the morning, and they see him again as they’re heading home in the afternoon.
“I hear all kinds of stories,” he says. “It’s a pleasure.”
Most of the time, they see him throughout the day at school, as well, in all sorts of volunteer capacities, from registration to picture days to recycling to helping in the cafeteria or the library.
A fixture at Hutchens for the past three years, Young recently was honored as an “unsung parent volunteer” when he received the first-ever National Volly Award, created by Booster, a fundraising and spirit wear company. He knew he was one of six finalists for the award, with the winner chosen by online voting.
But he had “no clue whatsoever” that he had won on the day his wife Ashley and sons, Maks Abbott and Reks McCoy, lured him outside their west Mobile house. Ashley says it was the biggest secret she’s ever kept, and her husband was definitely surprised to see a parade of cars was going by, cheering for him.
The Hutchens Elementary School community gathered in a car line and outside to celebrate with PTA President Kyle Young, winner of the National Volly Award, which celebrates America’s parent volunteers. (Photo courtesy of Booster)
When he received his award, which included a $1,500 gift card and 500 T-shirts for the school, he also got to watch a special video in which his family, other parents and Hutchens faculty and administrative staff members talked about what he means to the school.
As one teacher put it: “Every school needs a Kyle Young.”
Julie Neidhardt, the school’s science teacher, nominated him for the award. “He works tirelessly for the benefit of all our students,” she wrote. “No job is too small for him.”
Among the projects she credits him with taking on at Hutchens are organizing a parent-student bingo night, coordinating parent workdays, planning teacher breakfasts and pizza nights and fostering communication through social media.
Kyle worked as a general manager in the restaurant industry for more than 20 years, so he puts some of what made him successful in that career into his volunteer work. “Organizing is in my blood,” he says.
When his oldest son started at Hutchens in kindergarten, Kyle “wanted to be in the know,” so he got involved right off the bat. The next year, he was asked to be on the PTA. The following year, he became PTA president, a role he’s repeating in the upcoming year.
In addition to his job as a bus driver – he also drives the route for Dawes Intermediate School for third- through fifth-graders – and his volunteer work at Hutchens, Kyle and Ashley run KABL & CO, a specialty T-shirt business, out of their home.
Kyle says that Hutchens has a handful of other fathers volunteering, too. “I notice kids seeing the male role models at school,” he says. “When we get them, the kids absolutely love them.”
His own sons are still young enough that they enjoy seeing their dad at school. “Maks asks all the time if I’m coming up there to help, and 85 percent of the time I say yes, I’ll be up there today,” he says. “There’s always something to do.”
Though the school year ended abruptly in March because of the coronavirus pandemic, Kyle says he was impressed with how Mobile County Public Schools handled it, transitioning to online learning and helping parents cope.
“I tried to look at the positive,” he says – like children taking hand washing more seriously. But also, the experience has taught everyone “not to take each day for granted, to cherish each day.”
Kyle says he was raised to believe in giving back to the community, and if he wasn’t donating his time to Hutchens he would probably be giving it somewhere else.
“At the end of the day, I do this because I absolutely love being a part of my boys’ life,” he says. “Seeing these kids smile means the world to me, and it helps the school as well.”