The heartwarming ceremony begins when the garage door opens and a class of teenage students present a newly-refurbished car with a big red bow to a single mother.
For eight years, the presentation, delivered with a round of applause, has been repeated 4-5 times each year at Louisa County High School in Mineral, Virginia. The school’s automotive technology students repair the donated used cars and then give them away to single moms who could use a lift.
“The whole class is very rewarding,” Holden Pekary, a 16-year-old student told the Washington Post.
Pekary remembers seeing a little baby in her mom’s arms when one of the cars was given away and immediately recognized the dividends of all their classroom work.
“It gives you more of a purpose.”
Around 20 students are working on cars each semester in the school, about an hour northwest of Richmond. The teacher, Shane Robertson, instructs kids on how to perform brake and tire repairs, change fluids, test batteries, and maintain heating and cooling systems.
“They get the real-life grit behind why they are really doing a task,” Robertson said in an interview with ABC. “This is somebody’s real car and you’re really making a change in the world.”
The program began in partnership with the nonprofit Giving Words, a local charity that works to support single parents by providing complimentary vehicles and car repairs.
Founder Eddie Brown and his wife were both single parents who had struggled with transportation issues before launching the nonprofit.
“So far, we’ve given over 60 cars away, and repaired more than 260,” Brown told WTVR.
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The collective kindness seems to spill out in every direction, like the hum of an engine echoing inside the walls of a garage. In addition to Louisa County High School, Giving Words also collaborates with individual owners and area repair shops to help obtain additional donated vehicles.
One of the program’s success stories involved a 2007 gold Toyota Prius that the students gave to Jessica Rader, a single mom with three kids who overcame addiction. Before her life was blessed with the car giveaway, she relied on rides from friends and family for all the obligations, appointments, and activities that accompany motherhood.
Now, she’s progressed from a part-time job to full-time work, thanks to a reliable car that gets her to work on time—and keeps everything else in her mom-life on track.
MORE TEEN CAR GIVEAWAYS:
• High Schoolers Surprise Janitor From Ghana with Dream Car: a Red Jeep in Time for His Birthday
• Girls Volleyball Team Buys Beloved Custodian a Car to Repay Him for All He’s Done–Watch the Texas-Sized Surprise
In the end, when the garage door went up at Louisa High and Pekary and his classmates joined in applause, it was much more than a refurbished Prius being presented to Jessica. It was a helping hand arriving from the other side. And a reminder that kindness can be delivered at any age.
“It’s not just about the car, it’s about community,” Jessica told the Washington Post. “Kids who never met me cared about me enough to put hard work into a vehicle to make sure myself and my kids were safe. I got to meet all of them. It was breathtaking.”
WATCH the ABC News video below… (BUT BEWARE; the ABC news links and scroll bars are embedded with negative news, alongside the video.)
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