Saturday, as part of our Breakfast with Santa program, we were honored to provide our 80th donated vehicle to an Afghanistan veteran who has no means of transportation.

This is quite a milestone for our program, as we are closing in on our goal to provide 100 donated vehicles to veterans who either are disabled and cannot afford a vehicle, have small children and cannot afford a vehicle, or a homeless veteran who needs a vehicle to get a job.

We started this program nine years ago, and thanks to our community we have been donated more than 115 vehicles to date. Not every vehicle makes it to a veteran in need, and we sometimes scrap a vehicle if the amount of repair is 40% or higher vs. the value of the vehicle. The funds we get from scraping these vehicles go back into our funds for paying for future repairs.

Of the 80 vehicles we have donated, there are 76 still on the road. This is amazing when you realize that most of the vehicles donated range between 150,000-300,000 miles.

We created this program as most other vehicle donation programs use the money from auctions to offset administrative costs and there is no attempt to provide any type of vehicle back to a needy person. We just found another way to do it so the veteran in the end gets the vehicle they need. The program created and run by Thomas M. Brady American Legion Post 45 and the Cherokee County Homeless Veteran program have donated vehicles to veterans across the state of Georgia as long as they meet the program requirements.

If you are interested in donating a well-loved used vehicle that can change the life of someone, please reach out to us, as we are a 501c19 veteran nonprofit and can give you a donation for tax purposes.

I want to thank those who have donated vehicles to our program over these years. This veteran got his Christmas wish from Santa, and we wish him well.