The Cars 4 Causes Blog. Car Donation Program Nationwide.

We were eager to help Zaira out when we heard her touching story of keeping hope and being triumphant over terrible circumstances.

Zaira endured a painful and abusive childhood before she immigrated to the United States in 1995. Forced to continue living with a neglectful and demeaning parent, she was left feeling discouraged, unsupported and completely alone. She had nearly lost hope by the time she was placed in the foster care system.

It was at this point that Zaira’s life drastically changed for the better. She made her way through grade school, graduated high school, and is now in college, working towards becoming a Registered Nurse.

“I was on my journey to become someone”, she says. ”So far, I am doing excellent….For the past years, I have had many obstacles, but I have never given up and I never will.”

Zaira didn’t just believe in herself, she put in the work, and it has paid off in a big way. One obstacle that Zaira couldn’t overcome alone though was her lack of transportation.  She saved money and bought herself a car, but the cost of continually having to pay for repairs quickly became too cumbersome, and the car eventually ceased to work.

Cars 4 Causes® was happy to help. We provided Zaira with a 2003 Toyota Corolla. It’s our hope that, with the help of her new car, she will be able to continue to thrive in school and in life, and continue to meet her goals and fulfill her dreams.

Monday January 18, 2010 was the National Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service. We at Cars 4 Causes ® couldn’t let a “day of service” come and go without doing a little something extra for the community.

So after a bit of searching through our database of supported charities, we happened upon Project Linus, a charity that gives new, handmade blankets and afghans made by volunteers to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need.

It was a perfect match. The staff at Cars 4 Causes ® is a creative bunch with a serious knack for arts and crafts. We ended up making six blankets for Project Linus, all of which were not only warm and functional but absolutely adorable.

As The Charity That Gives To Charities®, Cars 4 Causes ® has always embraced the concept of helping others as one of our core values. But it’s not just a job; it’s a way of life.  And we’re not just employees, we’re community members.

Whether you volunteer, give financial support or donate your car, you truly can make a positive impact on the lives of those in need. In the spirit of giving, especially in light of recent events, Cars 4 Causes ® encourages everyone to do what they can to make a difference, and help others in their times of hardship.

Tags: blankets, Cars 4 Causes®, charity, community, community service, Project Linus, volunteer

Imagine putting your heart, soul and a hefty sum of money into something you love, only to have it unjustly ripped away from you without warning. That’s what happened to Barry.

He worked hard to raise the funds to purchase a 1941 Studebaker Champion Coupe, which he intended to fix up as a project car. On Wednesday evening, January 6^th 2010, according to witnesses, it was stolen right out of the driveway!

Barry posted an ad on Craigslist, http://ventura.craigslist.org/cto/1544223163.html, offering a $1000 reward to the person who leads to the recovery of the car.

“Help me find this Car !… This is a Lousy feeling… Imagine if you had worked very hard for something for a Long time, and some low life takes it away from you !… I feel like my child has been kidnapped…”

While Cars 4 Causes®is a national charity, we never forget our roots or our neighbors. We’re helping to spread the word about Barry’s car, and hoping that everyone’s efforts will get it returned to its rightful owner. We’re asking that everyone in the Ventura County area keep an eye out for Barry’s car, and contact Barry at 805-218-3658 if you see the car or have any information that could lead to its recovery. It’s a very unique car, and there are currently no cars like it in Ventura County, so if you see it, don’t hesitate to call.

Last week’s conclusion of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) succeeded in shedding more light on reducing and eliminating greenhouse gases, a cause that Cars 4 Causes® has been supporting for over a decade through car donations. We realize that our individual actions have global implications, and with the Cars 4 Causes Clean Air Program®, we are doing our part to create a cleaner, greener future.

Since its inception in 1998, the Cars 4 Causes Clean Air Program® has allowed donors to make a positive impact on the health of our environment through generous car donations of their older, less fuel efficient vehicles while simultaneously generating a much needed financial benefit for thousands of charitable organizations throughout the United States.

We’ve gathered some current statistics to give you a better idea of what the Cars 4 Causes Clean Air Program® is doing, and what you can do to help.

• According to the Carbon Fund Organization, unleaded gasoline has 19.56 lbs CO2/gallon.

• According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average U.S. car usage is 12,000 miles per year.

• While the Environmental Protection Agency’s reports, states that the overall average fuel economy for passenger vehicles of 20.3 mpg. We feel the recent Cash for Clunkers program is more representative of the type of car that we send to our Clean Air Program®. Therefore, according to http://www.dot.gov/affairs/2009/dot13309.htm, the average mpg of a Cash for Clunkers trade-in was 15.8 mpg.

• According to http://www.carbonfootprint.com/plantingtrees.html, an average tree offsets 1 ton of CO2 in its lifetime (100 years)

Based on these assumptions, the average donated car emits nearly 15,000 lbs, (or 7.5 tons) of CO2 every year.  In 2009 alone, Cars 4 Causes®received a total of 3,110 car donations that were sent to its Clean Air Program®, and we’ve recycled a total of 36,692 cars since the Clean Air Program® ‘s inception.

That means we’ve kept over 46 million lbs (23,000 tons) of CO2 from entering the atmosphere in 2009. Since we started, the Cars 4 Causes Clean Air Program® has kept over 545 million lbs of CO2 per year from entering the atmosphere!

These numbers are staggeringly large, but to put it into perspective, it would take almost 272,000 trees 100 years to offset that amount of carbon!

While you may not be able to plant eight trees every year to offset your carbon footprint, you can certainly donate your car to Cars 4 Causes, and put an end to those emissions for good.

Cars 4 Causes®has always made an effort to improve the health of the environment. We recognize the need for a simple, cost effective way to reduce CO2 emissions, and we are thankful for the awareness that the recent conference has brought to this issue.  We hope that more people will realize the need to reduce these harmful emissions and chose to donate their cars to Cars 4 Causes Clean Air Program® as an easy, proven solution to this global problem.

Tags: Car Donation, car donations, Cars 4 Causes®, COP15, Recycled Car Parts, Recycling Cars

Car donations that come in during December can still make the 2009 tax deduction deadline. Call right away for details and to see how the IRS timeline fits with your personal tax write-off situation for donations.

The year 2009 has been a wild year for car donations and for the auto industry in general. Much of the news swirled around the federal government’s Cash for Clunkers program. The program itself was quite controversial politically and amongst economics scholars. But for the car donation arena, the program’s impact has been decidedly negative.

We’ve seen that many of the used cars that went into the Cash for Clunkers program might have been destined for charity; they were rerouted instead into the scrap and salvage markets, thus both reducing donations to charities and, also, their flooding of the recycle auction markets reduced revenues charities could get from recycling old cars donated to them. We’ll be talking more about this next year.

HR571 – Legislation with Big Potential for Car Donors and Charities

As one of the foremost leaders in the car donation arena, Cars 4 Causes® is always on top of auto industry, auto recycling, and philanthropy trends. For example, one of the little-discussed news items of the year was HR 571, a legislation introduced in January and referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means (where it has languished all the long year). This bill could undo some of the damage done by the limitations on deductions for charitable car donations imposed by Congress in 2004. HR 571 would allow donors to deduct the fair market value of car donations up to $2500, and the appraised value on donations over $2500. This would help charities; higher value car donations have dropped since limitations were imposed, and charities have been on the losing end.

Cars 4 Causes® is following this legislation on behalf of car donors and – even more – on behalf of the charities that depend on vehicle donations to fund their causes. We’ll keep you updated.

But now, at this time of year, we know most of us are focused on the hustle-bustle of the moment. We’re receiving a rush of year-end vehicle donations, with donors concerned about meeting 2009 tax write-off deadlines. And that’s where our focus is, too.

Call us at 800-766-2273 or chat with us online if you have any questions about your donation. We’re here to help. And we thank you for your generous donations; so many of your charities depend on them.

Tags: Car Donation, car donations, Cars 4 Causes®, donated cars, HR 571, IRS, Tax deduction, Tax writeoff, vehicle donation