A car and a community: how students transformed a life in need

Jessica Rader knew she was getting a car. Still, when the keys to a 2007 gold Prius were handed to her, she wept.

“It’s not just about the car,” said Rader, 40. “It’s about community.”

Students at Louisa County High School in Mineral, Virginia, spent several months repairing and refurbishing the car before they presented it to Rader, a single mother of three children.

“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,” Rader said about the Prius she received in 2023. “I got to meet all of them; it was breathtaking.”

For the past eight years, students enrolled in the school’s automotive technology programme have been reviving timeworn vehicles and giving them to single mothers for free. They work on about five cars per year.

“It’s a great learning experience,” said Shane Robertson, an automotive teacher at the school. “It’s gratifying.”

The giveaway programme is done in partnership with Giving Words, a local non-profit that supports single mothers, mainly through car repairs and donations.

“A broken-down car means she can lose her job, miss her appointments,” said Eddie Brown, who founded Giving Words with his wife in 2018. “They’re relying on Ubers, buses and family, and some of those can be unreliable.”

Brown and his wife were both single parents before they met.

“The idea came from our own experience being single parents and struggling with transportation issues,” Brown said.

Brown taught himself how to do simple car repairs and soon began fixing other people’s cars on his driveway.

“I had the mechanical experience being able to work on our own cars, so I could work on these moms’ cars,” he said.

Brown said he and his wife wanted to focus on helping single mothers because around 80% or more of single parents in the U.S. are mothers. They formed partnerships with local repair shops, as well as Louisa County High School and Charlottesville Area Technical Education Center, to be able to do more repairs and help more women. The cars are donated by individuals or automotive businesses.

Since its inception, Giving Words has given more than 60 cars to single mothers in need of a vehicle. High school students have worked on about half of those cars, and the rest have been refurbished by repair shops.

“Being able to get the students involved has a direct impact on them. … It builds character and empathy,” Brown said. “Everything has a ripple effect.”

About 20 students work on each car, handling such tasks as brake and tyre repairs to heating and cooling systems, oil and fluid changes and battery testing.

“They get a real shop experience,” Robertson said. “You’ve got real life intersecting with education.”

Students also work on teachers’ vehicles as part of the programme. When a car is complete, it is towed to a shop to undergo a safety inspection before students present it to the new owner.

“The whole class is very rewarding,” said Holden Pekary, 16, who is in his second year of the automotive programme. “It’s good knowledge.”

Before winter break last month, he and his classmates presented a repaired vehicle to a woman with a baby.

“We raised the garage doors, and we all clapped for her,” he said. “It was nice. I put the licence plate on the car for her, and she had a little baby in her arms.”

Knowing where the cars are going, Pekary said, is motivating.

“It gives you more of a purpose,” he said.

Rader said even three years later, she remains stunned by the students’ dedication.

“It gave me a different perspective on adolescents,” Rader said. “It was nothing in return for them.”

She has three sons - ages 14, 9 and 4 - one of whom lives with his father. Before the students fixed up a car for her, Rader often relied on lifts from friends and family to get to work and to get her children to activities.

Rader had long struggled with drug addiction, she said, and after becoming sober in March 2022, she lived in a transitional home, where she was told about Giving Words.

“It wasn’t even three months later, and they gave me a car,” said Rader. “Because I had that vehicle, I was able to go from a part-time job to a full-time job; I was able to start school.”

She finally had a car to drive her sons to and from school, to doctor's appointments and extracurricular activities, and Giving Words also gave her free oil changes, as well as diapers and clothing for her sons. She said having a vehicle changed her life.

“I would not have been able to do it if it wasn’t for Giving Words and the students,” said Rader, who now works for a non-profit called Zoe Freedom Center, which supports people overcoming addiction. “Now I can teach people and show them through my testimony how life can be better.”

Rader said the students’ generosity has left a lasting impression.

“There are people who just want to help people,” she said.