Page 6 - BusinessWest February 3, 2025

Jessika Rozki with some of her model school buses.
She never did, and now she has a family business — two of her sons work with and for her, and her young daughter, now 7, comes to the office when she’s not in school — that continues to grow and add employees as well as new chapters to an already-inspiring story.
To a Higher Gear
‘Sunshine.’
That’s the name Rozki gave to the first school bus she bought. She paid $3,500 for the vehicle, which had a lot of years and miles on it — she doesn’t know exactly how many of each.
Sunshine, acquired to take children to and from an area summer camp, is still in service, though rarely used. The fleet, if you will, now includes several buses bought new, at $125,000 each. They all have names, as do the vans — names like Faith, Abundancia (‘abun- dance’ in Spanish), and Snow White (an older bus painted white).
The variety of names and the price tags on the newer buses speak to how this business has grown and evolved from quite hum- ble beginnings.
As noted earlier, Rozki was driving a school bus in Chicopee and, well ... enjoying the ride, as she put it.
“It was great pay, mommy hours ... I loved every minute of it,” she said, adding that her sister drove a school bus before her and encouraged her to join the ranks. When her daughter was born, Rozki took some time off, and when the bus company informed her she couldn’t take her daughter on her route, she decided it was time to do something else.
Just what, she wasn’t sure.
“I asked God for direction and started praying about it,” she said, adding that, with that direction, she decided to take her passion for driving and transporting children and make it into a business.
The Uber-style venture filled a need, she said, adding that many working parents needed help getting children to and from school, afterschool activities, to their grandmother’s house, or to other plac- es and functions.
“There was a lot of demand for this kind of service, but it’s a very hard market to get into because transporting children ... there’s a
“It’s amazing to work for yourself, but it’s hard. Whoever says it’s easy isn’t telling the truth.”
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6 FEBRUARY 3, 2025
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