Bob Votruba didn’t plan to bring his one-man, one-dog bus tour to State College until the springtime.
But torrential downpours on Friday morning forced him off Interstate 80, where he was driving his converted school bus — a 1990 Chevrolet — from Cleveland to New York.
It just so happened that he took an exit leading to Penn State.
‘I thought: ‘How could I not visit Penn State” right now? Votruba said.
And so it was that he, and his One Million Acts of Kindness bus tour, made an unscheduled stop late last week at University Park and in downtown State College.
The tour has nearly completed the first year of its planned decade-long venture, Votruba said, stopping at college campuses and other venues with a simple mission:
He wants every young person to complete one million acts of kindness in his or her lifetime. University Park was his 72nd campus visit thus far, Votruba estimated.
In a typical busy week, he said, he might speak and visit with 4,000 students, many of them drawn to the bus — hand-painted with optimistic messages of love, hope and friendship. About 140 people have contributed to the artwork on the vehicle, which doubles as Votruba’s 84-square-foot house.
‘I have no home, no car, no furniture,’ he said. ‘I have very little in the way of clothing.’
Votruba, 55, was a residential developer in the Cleveland area until he gave up the trade and launched his tour about a year ago. He came ‘from a very lucky type of lifestyle,’ said the father of three college-age children. ‘I didn’t have to fight much for what I wanted. … I didn’t need (material) things, but they were there. I didn’t have to worry about that sort of stuff.’
Shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when his kids were teenagers, Votruba launched a campaign — ‘Sew Only Seeds of Love’ — to stress love and kindness. The effort grew largely as a bumper-sticker campaign.
At the same time, Votruba said, school shootings emerged in the news — ‘specifically Virginia Tech.’ The massacre there in April 2007 claimed 33 lives. Votruba took ‘Sew Only Seeds of Love’ to Blacksburg, where he saw an entire community in mourning.
He wondered how someone — anyone — could do something so heinous. ‘It just made no sense to me.’
Votruba asked himself: ‘How can I, as an individual, do the complete opposite of what (the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho) did?’
He prayed; he meditated. Ultimately, he came up with the million-acts-of-kindness goal and decided to set out on this 10-year journey, he said.
It has revolutionized his life.
Among his travels, Votruba said, he has visited 49 firehouses in Manhattan, thanking firefighters. He has spoken in classrooms about the impact of role models. He is working to expand an annual Million Acts of Kindness event.
On the web, via Facebook, his campaign has drawn more than 3,800 fans.
At University Park on Friday, Votruba made his way to the Nittany Lion Shrine area and parked there. Students stopped to meet his traveling companion, the Boston terrier named Bogart, and to scope out the bus.
Votruba said he spoke with a freshman who just arrived from China. In her native language, she wrote on the bus: ‘Love will change the world.’
Another undergraduate, a junior involved with the ROTC, stopped to chat, as well. She works in hospitals, Votruba recalled.
A material-testing engineer also stopped by. He talked about a grandchild recently adopted into his family from Korea, Votruba said.
This is how is campus visits often work: informal, casual, conversational. He makes himself available to talk in a public place, and people congregate.
‘I’m trying to create a mindset in some of these kids, and let them realize how powerful their lives can be if they look inside themselves for the passion’ to help others, Votruba said. ‘ … Everyone has something they can offer someone else in a big way.’
As a father, he said, ‘you want the world to be the best place for these kids. I didn’t want to not do anything and turn around when I’m 70 years old and say I could have done something very cool, something to help others, and didn’t do it.’
Something perhaps not so cool: The kindness bus got slapped with a $25 borough parking ticket later Friday, when Votruba parked it outside the Corner Room in the evening. It appeared that the bus was in a loading zone.
Votruba, who headed out of town shortly before midnight Friday, said the street signage had confused him.
‘I will have that addressed,’ he said of the ticket. ‘I’ll make a nice call.’
In any case, the ticket doesn’t seem to have soured his view on State College. Votruba said he still plans to return later on, probably in the spring.
The U.S.’ current crop of young adults — known as Generation Y — ‘will do great things,’ he predicted.
‘You’re going to have to, almost,’ Votruba said, ‘to turn this thing around.’
