Jennifer Filzen, Author at Car 2nd Chance

Partner Highlight: Project Healing Waters

One of our favorite partners is a little-known group that has a beautiful impact on our military community: Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing (PHWFF)!

Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing got its start at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, working with veterans returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan to teach wounded combat veterans the therapeutic aspects of fly fishing. Its mission is to help rehabilitate disabled veterans from all eras, through all facets of fly fishing.

Your vehicle donations help fund this excellent outdoor recreational program. It benefits so many and helps make our society a kinder, less stressful place.

If you want to buy a donated vehicle, give cash, or present a car to Cars 2nd Chance to help out with Project Healing Waters, now is a great time to share! Having a second look at your garage could inspire you to donate your unused vehicle and help someone recover from a natural disaster or receive food from the Food Bank. Reach out to cars2ndchance@gmail.com to donate a car. We appreciate your love and support!

What Happens to a Donated Car?

Have you ever wondered what goes into the process of donating a car to Cars 2nd Chance? How does it work? What steps are involved? The truth is, it’s a bit of a volley of throwing the burden of work from one shoulder to another until everything is the way it should be.

The process of a donation begins with the donor completing a form directly on our website. We’ll get a lot of personal information and vehicle information. Then, we contact you at your email with a thank you letter that details how to get the car to us, and includes a donor form that is handy later for tax credits.

We’ll have you complete the donor form and return it to us, along with the transferred title, and we’ll send you a Release of Liability to complete the ownership transfer. From there, we’ll arrange a tow truck to pick your vehicle up.

All you have to do is coordinate with the towing company when they call you. They’ll set a date and time to pick the vehicle up and take it off your hands. From there, we’ll sell the vehicle, send you a Donor form 1098C for your taxes, and send our charity partner half the proceeds.

And that’s it! That’s the whole process!

If you want to buy a donated vehicle, give cash, or present a car to Cars 2nd Chance, now is a great time to share! Having a second look at your garage could inspire you to donate your unused vehicle and help someone recover from a natural disaster or receive food from the Food Bank. Reach out to cars2ndchance@gmail.com to donate a car. We appreciate your love and support!

Partner Highlight: Shelter Inc.

Introducing Shelter Inc.

We’ve all heard that old saying, April showers bring May flowers. The Springtime tends to remind me of another gardening quote I love: “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” I love this quote because working in the nonprofit sector feels like gardening. We plant our seeds, water them, give them sunlight, watch them get a little muddy in the rain, and eventually, we get to see our flowers bloom. Like gardening, the process takes a little bit of patience and much hope.

This April, we want to highlight one of the beautiful nonprofits that help flowers in our community bloom. As a part of our Partner Highlight series, we’d like to introduce one of the charities your contributions help support: Shelter Inc.

Shelter Inc.’s Impact

Shelter Inc. is a California organization dedicated to supporting our unhoused and homeless neighbors. Its mission is to prevent and end homelessness for low-income, homeless, and disadvantaged families. Shelter Inc. has numerous programs to prevent homelessness, support homeless families and individuals in stopping the cycle of homelessness and help to provide affordable housing.

With such a lofty goal at the heart of their mission, there’s much work to be done. But Shelter Inc. plants its seeds in many different ways! The Shelter Inc. provides:

Eviction Prevention
Interim Housing
Long-Term Housing
Low-Income Housing
Case Management Services
Employment Services
Housing Search Support
Resources for Veterans
Reintegration Services

And the beautiful, vibrant flowers of this work are undeniable. 95% of the families and individuals who exit their Mountain View Family Shelter move into permanent housing. Additionally, Shelter Inc. has taken over 6,705 calls for assistance, and they’ve served over 50,000 meals in their shelters. What a garden!

Supporting Shelter Inc. and Cars 2nd Chance

Thanks for reading, and we hope you’ll consider donating or volunteering at Shelter Inc.! Your donations to Cars 2nd Chance help to support Shelter Inc., too. If you want to buy a donated vehicle, give cash, or present a car to Cars 2nd Chance, now is a great time to share! Having a second look at your garage could inspire you to donate your unused vehicle and help someone recover from a natural disaster or receive food from the Food Bank. Reach out to cars2ndchance@gmail.com to donate a car. We appreciate your love and support!

The Virtues of Giving

Photo by Jackson David on Unsplash

Giving is as much of a blessing to the giver as it is to the receiver.

Please bear in mind, that’s not why we do it. We give because we see someone who needs a lending hand or because we remember being in a tough spot ourselves at one time or another. We offer our jackets to those shivering in the rain, spare our last dollar for someone who looks especially hungry, or let a neighbor borrow our shovel every once and a while. We even allow people to merge in front of us on the highway (as much as we don’t want to do it), not because we have to, but because it feels good. It’s a blessing to receive, but it’s a blessing to give, too.

Giving means having. What a gift it is to have what we have, even if it’s not much. Giving aids us in bonding with those around us and creates community and fellowship within our networks. Giving is freeing — literally and figuratively. To give is to let go of something you don’t use anymore and give it new life. It is cleansing to let things go, especially those things we don’t need anymore.

Above all, giving is transformative. You transform the physical object you are giving from an unused, unappreciated item to a lifeline for someone else. When you give to someone, you change their lives. If not the trajectory of the whole thing, you are at least transforming their moment, trial, or tribulation. You transform yourself in the act of giving, from a bystander to an active participant in the mission of goodwill.

Here at Cars 2nd Chance, we’ve never lost sight of the power of giving. We are endlessly thankful for the generosity and compassion of our community. It’s our most tremendous honor to serve the people around us and give as much as we receive. We get to spend each day reminded of the power of giving and the virtue that follows it. Our donors don’t just give for the tax right offs or the extra room in their garage (though these are undeniable perks), but for the opportunity to brighten someone else’s day. Week after week, month after month, year after year, we get to fill our scrapbook with examples of selfless giving.

Thanks for reading! We hope that being reminded of the moral nature of giving helped inspire you to donate today, whether to us or someone else. You can support our mission by buying a donated vehicle, giving us a cash donation, or telling your loved ones about what we do. If you’re ready to feel that feeling of delight that comes exclusively from giving to others, consider donating a vehicle to us. Your donation will help us provide relief to someone who needs a helping hand right now. Reach out to cars2ndchance@gmail.com to donate a car that runs, or send an email to clunkers4charity@gmail.com to donate a vehicle that does not run.

And don’t forget about the Charitable Wine Raffle being hosted later this month by the Rotary Club. The fun is taking place on March 17, 2022, and you’re invited! Tickets are only $25, and all proceeds help Clayton’s Children’s Park.

Partner Highlight: One Safe Place

Now that we’re in February, the year is really getting underway. We hope your winter has been kind and you are looking forward to a glorious spring (once nature gets around to it)!

As we plan for our new year of redistributing charitable donations, we’re thinking about the good we hope to do this year and the partners that we hope will get us there. As a part of our Partner Highlight series, we’d like to introduce one of the charities your contributions help support: One Safe Place.

One Safe Place describes itself as a comprehensive crime prevention agency devoted to preventing crime and violence in Tarrant County’s neighborhoods, schools, and homes.’ One Safe Place benefits people through public awareness campaigns, bolstering communities with vigilance, and showing empathy for those affected by criminal activity.

One Safe Place bases its premise on the idea that the best path to stopping crime is to prevent crime. It looks to the places where the crime begins and works to eliminate violence and make out communities safer. Here’s just some of the resources One Safe Place has on their website:

Family Justice Center
Crime Stoppers
Imagine No Violence
Camp Hope
Bike Patrol Support Group
Project Safe Neighborhood
Safe City Training

Thanks for reading, and we hope you’ll make use of One Safe Place as much as possible! If you want to buy a donated vehicle, give cash, or present a car to Cars 2nd Chance, now is a great time to share! Having a second look at your garage could inspire you to donate your unused vehicle and help someone recover from a natural disaster or receive food from the Food Bank. Reach out to cars2ndchance@gmail.com to donate a car. We appreciate your love and support!

On another note, our Rotary Club is hosting a Charitable Wine Raffle on March 17, 2022, and you’re invited! Here is our flyer, and we welcome anyone who wishes to attend.

A New Year and an Old Car

Photo by Vasilios Muselimis on Unsplash

With the first new day of the year comes a sense of new possibility. We can cast off old habits, old dynamics in favor of new ones just because the calendar change permits us. Back in 1991, singer George Michael shook his head at people resetting their lives by the change of a calendar in the song “Waiting for the Day,” in the line,

Now everybody’s talking about this new decade
like you say the magic number
then just say goodbye to the stupid mistakes you made

Personally, I like the simplicity of the ‘New Year, New Me’ approach. It grants us the power to start fresh with a sense of purpose. We hope we have learned from our mistakes, but more importantly, we continue to survive and thrive despite our missteps.

Here we are in January of 2022. Some folks have received new cars for Christmas, or pre-owned and lightly used cars, anyways. And while that seems a pretty expensive present, I can’t argue against it. It’s a beautiful idea. I just wonder: did you trade in that old car yet?

The amount of value that most people get for car trade-ins rarely helps the sale. You could donate the old car itself to a charitable organization like Cars 2nd Chance and then claim it off your taxes. It could be rescued by top mechanics, loved, and allowed to live on to support charities of Rotary Clubs across the nation. So before you trade a used car in for pennies on the dollar, consider donating it to Cars 2nd Chance!

Thanks for reading… we hope we’ve inspired someone out there to donate! If you want to buy a donated vehicle, give cash, or present a car to Cars 2nd Chance, now is a great time to share! Having a second look at your garage could inspire you to donate your unused vehicle and help someone recover from a natural disaster or receive food from the Food Bank. First, reach out to cars2ndchance@gmail.com to donate a car that runs, or send an email to clunkers4charity@gmail.com to donate a vehicle that does not run. We appreciate your love and support!

Our Favorite Car Donation Story of 2021

It’s hard to believe we’re at the end of 2021 already! Unlike 2020, which seemed to never end, this year has gone by in a flash. We stayed busy and managed to make an impact on a few families this year. We’re grateful that we could help out and grateful for the support we got from our partners and friends in making that happen.

We want to take a moment to reflect on some of our favorite car contributions; that people just like YOU helped us make a reality this year!

One story worth mentioning from this past year was that we received a donation of a travel trailer. We ended up refusing the donation, as the trailer looked to be in rough shape, and it would not have been in the Rotary’s best interest to send it to the auction. However, many months later, someone contacted us looking for a travel trailer; for a homeless man. We managed to connect them with the travel trailer owner, who, amazingly enough, still had the trailer! Long story short and many roadblocks later: the homeless man is no longer homeless.

But our favorite story by far of 2021 was this 1974 Datsun 710 Wagon in the picture above! It was donated by the Rotary Club of Moraga Rotarian Deb Roessler. Deb and her husband, Louis, were the original owners of this beautiful, bright orange 710 wagon.

Going through the vehicle’s documents with them, we realized that they purchased the vehicle at Oakland Datsun Volvo in 1974 while Dave (my husband) had been working there. Looking into the vehicle further, Dave realized that he had actually installed the aftermarket air conditioning on it!

Talk about a coincidence! After 46 years, what are the chances of an orange Datsun still being on the road and Dave meeting it again!

We advertised it on Facebook marketplace and had close to fifty messages asking about it. Everyone wanted this vehicle! A call from one young man touched us to the core. His father actually had owned the same make and model back in the 1970s. Dad was going through chemotherapy, and the son wanted to surprise his dad with the vehicle. So that is what we did! Here are the son and dad standing to the left of Dave

Partner Highlight — Moraga Rotary Club

This month, we’re highlighting the work of another fine partner for Cars 2nd Chance: the Rotary Club of Moraga. They’ve been proudly serving the Moraga community and the world since 1967, and together, we’re doing some real good.

The Moraga Rotary Club helps our organization connect with car donors in their community, through the various groups they interconnect with. In addition, their membership keeps their eyes open for recipients in need of a Cars 2nd Chance hand in their area and nominates families for aid.

Among some of the good works that the Moraga Rotary Club has done in years past includes various disaster relief projects, the opening of kids parks, as well as providing Christmas cheer for kids in the Juvenile Detention system. Their membership works hard to coordinate good efforts with deserving people.

Their president, Brian J, South, holds meetings every Tuesday at noon, in person at La Finestra Ristorante and also on Zoom. The work they do for Moraga is a great reason to contribute. If you’re looking for a reason to join Rotary and volunteer besides the above-mentioned good deeds, Rotary Club of Moraga has 20 more for you.

If you want to buy a donated vehicle, give cash, or present a car to Cars 2nd Chance, now is a great time to share! Having a second look at your garage could inspire you to donate your unused vehicle and help someone recover from a natural disaster or receive food from the Food Bank. First, reach out to cars2ndchance@gmail.com to donate a car that runs, or send an email to clunkers4charity@gmail.com to donate a vehicle that does not run. We appreciate your love and support!

Partner Highlight — Mt. Diablo Amateur Radio Club

Image by Megan Krause from Pixabay

Do we have any ham radio operators out there? We are very excited to present to you one of our new partners, MT Diablo Amateur Radio Club!

Mt Diablo Amateur is one of the largest amateur radio clubs in California! Since the start of their journey (January 9, 1947!), their purpose has been to awaken the innovative and creative spirit that is hiding in the amateur radio community through education, service, and warm fellowship that makes the process fun!

We’re thankful to the MT Diablo Amateur RADIO Club for the work that they are doing, and we are excited for all of our future projects together! The ham radio community has the reach to find people in need all over North America, people that Cars 2nd Chance can help, or people with an old vehicle to spare that can help others!

If you want to buy a donated vehicle, give cash, or present a car to Cars 2nd Chance, now is a great time to share! Having a second look at your garage could inspire you to donate your unused vehicle and help someone recover from a natural disaster or receive food from the Food Bank. First, reach out to cars2ndchance@gmail.com to donate a car that runs, or send an email to clunkers4charity@gmail.com to donate a vehicle that does not run. We appreciate your love and support!

Behind The Scenes: How Do We Choose The Recipients Of Car Donations?

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Cars 2nd Chance’s mission has always been to help as many people as possible experience the beauty of life without being constrained by limits such as poverty and disease. However, we can’t do it alone, which is why we have partnered with so many Rotary clubs, trusts, and charitable organizations across the country!

Once you make a car donation, you’ll have the chance to select a partner from our partners’ list and support them and their community’s needs! The great thing about our partner’s list is that you cannot make the wrong choice– every organization that we partner with puts your donation in the hands of someone worthy of your contribution.

Each and every one of our partners is dedicated to a cause and fights every day to ensure funding and support for it. Food shelters, Cancer research, non-profit, you name it, we probably have a partner for it! In turn, our partners will seek out worthy recipients from their local pool and choose someone whose situation can be improved with your donation.

The work and the impact we want to do is gigantic. Solving global problems is not about finding a singular solution, but solving the minor issues of thousands of local communities. We hope that you, too, can join us on this quest!

If you want to buy a donated vehicle, give cash, or present a car to Cars 2nd Chance, now is a great time to share! Having a second look at your garage could inspire you to donate your unused vehicle and help someone recover from a natural disaster or receive food from the Food Bank. First, reach out to cars2ndchance@gmail.com to donate a car that runs, or send an email to clunkers4charity@gmail.com to donate a vehicle that does not run. We appreciate your love and support!