Florida teachers built a bench for the girl who waited for her school bus at the edge of their driveway

Maren Douglass and her husband, both teachers in Florida, were in hospital for his cancer treatment on 1 September when their home security cameras flagged movement in the driveway, People reported. On the live feed they saw a girl, a high schooler, sitting at the edge of the driveway waiting for her school bus.

The school district had put her bus stop there because of where she lives, down the road. It happened every morning that week. “It’s a busy road coming up to a stop sign, but sometimes people do go pretty quick,” Douglass, 44, said.

The bench

While they were still in hospital, the couple ordered a bench online, then put it together themselves when they got home. They set it where their cameras could see it and chained it to a basketball pole, so nobody would think they were throwing it out.

The girl found it the next Monday. “It was just the cutest reaction, just her little jumps, and it just kind of all just got sweeter from there,” Douglass said. Then a handwritten note came:

“Hello, this is from the kid that waits for the bus at your house. Thank you so much for putting that bench there! Now I don’t have to worry about dirt and bugs, I appreciate it a ton!”

The library

Douglass noticed the girl was often reading while she waited, so she spent a long weekend building and painting a small library box to stand next to the bench. Other children on the street now borrow books from it and bring them back.

The couple have since added an umbrella for rainy mornings and left out some of the girl’s favourite snacks. She brought them two homemade cookies to say thank you. “She’s just an awesome kid, and she deserves all the kindness, and I wish more people would do things like that,” Douglass said.