Coach USA returns money to Toledo duo

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - William Liddell finally saw the check in his mailbox Thursday that he has been looking for over the last two weeks.

“When I called (Coach USA), I couldn’t get no answer, no nothing until I called Channel 13,” Liddell said. “Channel 13 got my money. Before that I couldn’t get no answer, no money. All I could get was a buzz.”

Lakefront Lines was a subsidiary of Coach USA and Lakefront ceased operations in July. Coach USA returned the $6,661 Liddell and his friend Charlie Collins Sr. raised primarily with a food truck event to cover a bus trip for Martin Luther King Jr. Academy for Boys. The intended destination: the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C.

“They had some of everything down there,” Liddell said about his trip to the museum. “I come out of Mississippi and I came from a town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi. They had (Martin Luther) King (Jr.) there, Emmitt Till and some of everybody. Everybody my color need to go down and see that museum.”

Collins says getting the money back isn’t the only bright spot.

“It was a learning experience because we have good intention and I’m quite sure Lakefront (Lines) did too," Collins said. "Nobody saw this COVID-19 coming. The bad part about it (was) no correspondence. After we reached out to them - email, telephone including corporate numbers - there was no response from them.

Now, it is back to looking forward to future charity work for Collins with his food truck and his friend William Liddell.

“Since I got my money back this gives me a spark,” Liddell said. “Then we gonna send Ella P. Stewart school down there and after that we’ll send a school every year.”

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