Habitat offers tow for donated cars that no longer go

Habitat for Humanity International has added some horsepower to its Cars for Homes program — a towing service for nonworking cars.

“For someone who has an older car and doesn’t want to sell it on the market themselves, this is a good way to get it out of the driveway and get a tax receipt, too, while providing income for Habitat,” said Habitat volunteer Director Dawn Hjelseth.

Carol Hannon recently moved to Jamestown, N.Y., and decided to stop in Chattanooga to visit a childhood friend while driving from her home in South Carolina to Jamestown. While here, she planned to drop off her car, a 2000 Dodge Stratus, for donation, then fly from Chattanooga to meet her husband in New York.

“We knew we wanted to donate the car rather than sell it, so when I got to Chattanooga, I Googled ‘donating a car’ and there were a lot of options that popped up, but the first one was Habitat,” she said. “I knew they did good things and knew I could trust them to do the right thing with the car. I knew they would put the money they got from it to good use.”

Hannon was given a tax receipt for her donation, and the write-off is more than she would have gotten had the car been traded in at a dealership, she said.

All money from the Cars for Homes goes into Habitat’s local building fund. Since the program began a year ago, $5,000 has been made from selling cars at Habitat’s ReStore outlet on Main Street.

But thanks to the new program allowing nonworking cars also to be donated, another $700 has been added to the fund.

“We’ve found that people donating their cars over the past year understand our mission and don’t want to give us junk cars, but it’s nice that now there’s a way for people with junk cars to also make donations,” Hjelseth said.

“Habitat will pick the car up, tow it to the salvage yard, then give us the money they make from metal and other scrap parts,” she said.

Helah Spain recently found the right car for herself at Habitat’s ReStore. Spain, who has multiple sclerosis, needed a car to get from work to the doctor’s office and home.

“I needed a good vehicle at a good price,” she said.

And she found it — a 1996 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer edition for $1,300.

“It appears to be in really good condition,” she said. “It was owned by an older couple and has been very well maintained. And it came with every piece of paperwork with it. I’m very pleased.”

Other nonprofit organizations in the area accept donated cars and have found it’s a good way to raise needed funds.

Kristen Camden, director of public relations and marketing for Goodwill Industries, said it also has a program for people to donate their cars.

“We have an auction company that sells the cars for us, and they will go pick the cars up for us,” she said.

Goodwill does not have exact figures on how much money the car program has raised, she said, but it has been a significant amount.