Photo by Terry Georgia
Ruth Fletcher-Carter, who founded Berthoud’s Rural Alternative For Transportation (RAFT), retires as her organization celebrates ten years of providing transportation for Berthoud residents.

By Terry Georgia
The Surveyor

By any measure, Ruth Fletcher-Carter is a force of nature. Bright, engaging, smart and kind, she has made a difference in thousands of lives. Recently celebrating her 81st birthday, Ruth still sparkles, and could undoubtedly out-pace many half her age, but she has decided to cut back on some of her many volunteer commitments to take a little more time for herself—time to take a breath and release a few of her responsibilities to those she has taught so well.

Ruth is, perhaps, best known and loved around Berthoud as the founder of the Rural Alternative For Transportation service (RAFT), a volunteer transportation service. RAFT is designed to transport people living in rural areas of Berthoud when they can’t drive themselves. Riders must live inside the Berthoud Fire Protection District boundaries but outside town limits. They have to be over the age of 60 or over the age of 18 with a disability. They’re taken to work, medical, legal and social appointments as far away as Boulder and Ft. Collins. RAFT drivers are all volunteers which proves, according to Ruth, that “Berthoud has a huge heart.”

Her own heart was inspired early in life when, as an eight-year-old, Ruth came down with rheumatic fever and was confined to bed for a year. Berthoud was very small then, with a population of about 1,100 people. When they heard about Ruth’s illness they filled a refrigerator box with 365 gifts so she’d have a present to open every day of the year she would be bedridden. She has never forgotten the kindness shown to her by the people of Berthoud and she was eager to give some of that kindness back to the town later in her life.

Ruth had a successful career teaching deaf education in different parts of the country, ending up in New Mexico, where she eventually retired. In 2008, when her husband Jim (also a Berthoud native) became ill, they moved back to Berthoud to be closer to family. He died in 2010. “After Jim died, I prayed,” Ruth remembered, “Lord, I need a purpose.” In 2013, her new purpose would come into focus.

As Ruth remembered it, “Since 1989 Berthoud’s Senior Center had been transporting area seniors to events like lunch at the fire department, in a rickety old van. They called it BATS, the Berthoud Area Transportation Service. By 2000, the rules for transporting people had become too complex, so the Senior Center handed the service over to the town.” BATS continued to grow in popularity, transporting older residents and the disabled where they needed to go. It was also a service provided by volunteers.

Ruth got involved in April of 2013, when the town trustees decided to cut back on the range of BATS services, only providing trips within town limits. The service had become too expensive to operate outside the town limits. Ruth went to the trustees to see what could be done but came away empty-handed. She became determined to restore transportation to Berthoud’s rural areas.

By June, Ruth had pulled together “four cheerleaders,” as she calls them, to help figure out what to do. They were local business leaders, friends and neighbors. “We decided we couldn’t do much unless we became a non-profit,” recalled Ruth, “so we approached Berthoud Golden Links and asked if we could become a program under their umbrella. They said yes, and there we were an instant non-profit!” By August, the group had acquired their first grant of $4,995 from the Larimer County Office on Aging. They began recruiting and training volunteer drivers immediately.
RAFT provided its first ride on January 16, 2014. For the first five years, everything was coordinated by phone and email from Ruth’s home office. She was an organizing whiz. A woman on a mission.

“She ate, slept and breathed the job,” remembers Marian Maggi, of RE/MAX Town & Country Realty in Berthoud, one of RAFT’s earliest supporters. Maggi remains on the RAFT board today and is still a volunteer driver. RE/MAX Town & Country Realty is also a sponsor of RAFT. “She is so humble,” says Maggi of Ruth, “she has developed this organization from scratch. People learn from her about how to look after other people.” Maggi describes RAFT as “such a needed service in our community. It helps people stay in their homes.”

As devoted as Ruth has been to caring for the transportation needs of Berthoud’s rural residents, she could easily see the massive growth that lay ahead. As Berthoud continued to grow and the population aged, more and more people would need help. “I knew that to grow, I had to get out of my bedroom!” quipped Ruth when recalling her push to keep the organization moving forward.

Wanting a secure future for RAFT, Ruth negotiated with the town and obtained free office space for RAFT in the town’s former bank and town hall building on Massachusetts Avenue. The organization moved from her home to the new RAFT office space in October of 2022. “We operated all through the COVID-19 pandemic without ever shutting down,” she recalled, “we were very strict and didn’t have any transmission of COVID for either clients or drivers. We got through it.” She is emphatic that RAFT wouldn’t exist without the dedication of volunteer drivers. “We all say we’re paying it forward by volunteering.” quips Ruth, who still takes her turn behind the wheel when she can.

As RAFT celebrates its tenth anniversary this month, Ruth is retiring. It was a hard decision to leave an organization she loves. “Did I sit and cry? Yes,” she admitted, but she’s ready to have time for new adventures and she feels she’s leaving RAFT in good hands. A little over a year ago, she and the board hired RAFT’s first paid employee, Steve Conaway, who became the Executive Director of RAFT on Jan. 1, 2024. They were also able to hire a part-time operations manager.

In the year he has worked with RAFT, Conaway has put his extensive experience in transportation services to good use. He has computerized RAFT’s operations and introduced new software to make scheduling easier for riders and drivers. Ridership increased 400% last year. Conaway has more big plans to build on what Ruth started and grew for ten years.

Ruth’s official retirement date was January 15, but she still plans to help out, giving advice and guidance when she can. In the meantime, her legacy will live on in the heart of every volunteer driver and every rider who owes their independence to Ruth Fletcher-Carter.

An open house is being held on Feb. 10, 2024, to honor Ruth and to kick off the 10-year anniversary of RAFT. It will be held at Grace Place on Feb. 10- from 2 – 4 p.m. Please bring a card in a sealed envelope for Ruth or send it to RAFT, PO Box 1754, Berthoud CO 80513

To donate to RAFT, schedule a ride or become a volunteer driver, visit https://berthoudraft.org. Or call 970-532-0808.