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A professor from UMASS Lowell donated a lovely 2008 Honda Fit and the good folks at Greater Lawrence Tech refurbished it with new tires, battery, and more. While this was happening, Inner City Weightlifting introduced Chino to us.  His SCC “car calculator” showed that he could increase his net earnings by close to $3000 annually after car expenses if awarded a car, not to mention be able to spend more time with his daughter. This coalition of generosity and competence — what we call our “Community of Goodness” — put Chino into a car he could not afford and that is poised to change his and his daughter’s life. (January 2020 update: Thanks to the car, Chino can now work three jobs, from 6 AM to 10 PM, six days a week.)

Second Chance office Space SCC is of course a nonprofit but did you know we are also a Massachuesetts-licensed used car dealer? This means that need to meet numerous state requirements including for our office space.  Requirements include having a dedicated entrance just for our business, be located in an area zoned for used car dealing, and have dedicated parking spaces. We looked for months for a space that met all the requirements and were about to sign a lease on a small, dark space that required a lot of investment when, incredibly, we found this space a 40 second walk from our executive director’s house, and converted it into possibly the coolest used car dealer office in North America (low-bar, we know….)

We awarded a mint, low mileage 2008 Toyota Corolla to Doug (second from right), a veteran working with Volunteers of America (MA). Doug is expected to at least double his income as a result of now having a car! In photo from left to right: Angela and Eric (VoA staff), Britty and car donor Corey, Dan (SCC), Doug (veteran) and Sam (SCC intern).

It takes a village (or a “community of goodness” as we like to say) to award a great car to a great person. This community came together at Veterans Inc.’s annual Stand Down event to award a gorgeous and refurbished 2006 Subaru Legacy to Ken, a Vietnam veteran (far left, below). Featured from left to right are Tim Corey (Veterans Inc.), Dan Holin (SCC), Michelle Roche and John Primpas (Minuteman Vocational School), Sue Katz (American Consumer Credit Counseling), and John Rizzi (SCC). Missing: Dave and Sue, the Subaru’s donors!

Over the past six months, we approached 18 banks, hoping to find one that would be able to offer our car awardees a 0% interest loan. Even though we could secure each loan, we got rejected repeatedly. We literally were about to give up when the City of Boston Credit Union came through, offering a 0% interest loan, free bank membership and an offer to help out with financial literacy training. CBCU also hosted our first “SCC learning community” partner training meeting. Thank you Dan Picard, Consumer Lending Manager, for making this partnership happen!

Our board and staff continue to meet every three weeks to prepare for our program “roll out” in early 2019. Last meeting we were lucky to host and have a terrific conversation with Luis Rodriguez, a returning citizen, a business owner and a college readiness adviser employed by College Bound Dorchester.

A main goal for the coming weeks is to partner with a bank or credit union that will be able to not only administer our $900 micro-loans to car recipients, but also to report the loan payment to credit rating agencies.