Remembering the “Brilliant Bus” driver who created a mobile computer classroom – back in her 70s

Estella Pyfrom has proven that it’s never too late to make a difference.

Pyfrom, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 85 following a long battle with leukemia, will be remembered as an energetic woman who dedicated her life to helping underserved children. In fact, she came out of retirement after 50 years of teaching in Florida’s Palm Beach County school district with a plan to bring computer technology to those who couldn’t afford it.

At the time, at the age of 72, she told her husband, fellow teacher and high school sweetheart Willie Pyfrom, that she had come up with the idea of ​​buying a bus that could travel to underprivileged children so so that they can learn to use the computer. Willie Pyfrom was reluctant to start a new business when he was also about to retire, but he said: ‘She was a go-getter. She was excited every moment. He agreed to do whatever he could to support her.

Thus, in 2011 Miss Estella’s shiny bus take the road.

Pyfrom outfitted a tour bus with 17 state-of-the-art computer stations and drove it around nearby communities so children who didn’t have access to computers at home could learn everything from research skills to based on coding.

To date, the bus has served hundreds of thousands of students.

Pyfrom received honors, accolades and funding for her work: she was a CNN Heroes, she was invited to the White House by President Obama as one of President George HW Bush’s personalities. points of light, she was featured in a Microsoft Super Bowl commercial in 2015 she was L’Oréal woman of value nominated, she received “Toyota’s Standing O-vation Award” from Oprah Winfrey… and Winfrey even wrote the foreword for Pyfrom’s book.

Pyfrom’s son Juan said: “In some ways, the bus was a singular project: she was the bus. But we are looking for ways to push it forward in one form or another. We really try to make sure that we don’t lose sight of the dream and are able to keep the dream alive in a way that would make her proud.

A humble beginning

Pyfrom didn’t start her career in the classroom – she got her start in the bean fields at a very young age. Pyfrom’s parents were migrant workers. They raised their seven children in Belle Glade, Florida, hub of winter market gardening. The family traveled from Florida to upstate New York to follow seasonal crops: his father was a camp director, his mother ran a sandwich shop, the children worked in the fields. Never one to sit back and relax, Pyfrom excelled at picking beans, keeping pace with adults more than twice his age.

Pyfrom worked as hard in school as he did on the pitch. She earned her master’s degree and began her long teaching career as a home economics teacher. She has also worked as a teacher, guidance counselor and school administrator. “At one point she told me she had four jobs,” said friend and reporter Daphne L. Taylor. “The Pyfroms worked hard to get ahead, then they took the money they had earned and made it work for them.”

The Pyfroms were very careful with their income and they used some of this money for investments and the purchase of properties. To make Miss Estella’s Brilliant Bus a reality, the Pyfroms used $1 million of the money they had so carefully saved for retirement to buy the bus and equipment.

On the road

When Pyfrom first boarded her bus, she knew exactly where to go—the clearings.

A short drive from the Palm Beach mansions is a small farming community known as Glades. Home to a surprising number of NFL players, the Glades are the “stepchild of Palm Beach County,” Taylor said. Many families residing in the glades live below the poverty line, and making sure there is food on the table is more important than buying a computer and internet access.

Growing up in Belle Glade, Pyfrom already knew its people and their needs. She didn’t have to convince families that she was trying to help them – she was already active in the community and residents immediately understood the value of her offer of help. Willie Pyfrom said: “Growing up as a child migrant, she understood migrants, poor children and hard-working grassroots people. She was loved from day one.

Pyfrom’s son Juan said: ‘Because she had worked in the Glades community, she saw there was a void in children’s access to computers. She intuitively understood that access to computers and technology was the wave of the future, and that many of these children were being left behind.

Its mission was to empower children and families with lifelong learning skills by providing instruction and access to technology.

With the help of volunteer drivers, Pyfrom headed for underserved neighborhoods. “She would go to group homes, she would go to Title 1 schools, fairs, parks. She hasn’t forgotten anything. Some of them were well orchestrated. Some of them weren’t,” Taylor said.

In short, Pyfrom organically located the bus where it could be most useful to residents.

Pyfrom taught the students herself. She started with the basics — things as simple as learning to log on — and after Microsoft donated software, she taught Microsoft programs. She had used computers throughout her teaching career, but once the idea of ​​the bus started to pick up steam, she started learning on her own, when she was in her 70s. years, coding in order to teach others this very important skill. “She really did her homework,” Taylor said.

on a roll

Pyfrom not only taught the children, she also brought the bus to the elderly and the homeless. She was already serving this elderly population through the food pantry she ran with her husband. Once the bus was ready to leave, she also started teaching them computer skills.

“She didn’t really have an age limit,” Taylor said. “And that’s what she loved – the fact that it was multi-range, from toddlers to seniors.”

Pyfrom has never stopped trying to help everyone with its seemingly unlimited internal disk. Her husband said, “All the time she was in front of the computer. I woke up in the morning and there she was. I woke up at midnight and there she was.

Her legacy lives on in the dozens of children she taught and people she helped, in her four children (three of whom work in education), in her 13 grandchildren, three great -grandchildren and in the groundwork she threw for others to carry on. .

His son said, “There is still a lot to be done in this same area with his best interests in mind.”