CHARITIES
The club believes in giving back to the community. We donate time, money and materials to organizations such as the Santa Barbara Food Bank, The Santa Maria VA Clinic, the Sleep in Heavenly Peace organization and The Boys and Girls Club of Santa Maria. We also sponsor scholarships at Alan Hancock College for students in the Automotive Technology curriculum.
This year, Larry Wright represented the club at the Alan Hancock Awards Banquet where he met three of the four winners of a scholarship sponsored by the club for the next year. The receipents are selected by the Alan Hancock Collage Foundation from students working on certificates or degrees in Automotive Technology. The winners were: Jonathan Gomez, Luis Gutierrez, Alejandro Solorio and Armondo Uribe. Alejandro also received a club sponsored sponsored scholarship in 2023, a testament to his abilities.
A new charity for the club is the Sleep in Heavenly Peace organization, a group of volunteers that builds beds for needy children. On April 6th, 2024, Gerry White represented the club to hand over a check at a gathering of volunteers building beds in Lompoc.
December 14th found members meeting at the Santa Maria Boy’s and Girl’s Club to help Santa give gifts to over 110 kids. Needless to say, the gifts loved getting to see Santa and receiving the presents. The members got to enjoy seeing the smiling faces and watch the kids enjoy their gifts.
On November 14th members gathered to donate to the KCOY annual Turkey Drive with a check for the SLO Food Bank. This is an annual charity event for the club. Afterwards we adjourned to a local restaurant to enjoy socializing and talking about cars.
Scholarships of $500 each were awarded to Victor Mendez-Lemus, Luis Giles-Gutierrez, Adan Ortiz-Garcia and Alejandro Solorio in 2023. They are all working towards certificates or degrees in Automotive Technology. Club members Clay Beck and Gerry white attended the award ceremony honoring these and all the scholarship recipients.
In 2022 we had the joy of bringing Santa and lots of gifts to the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Maria on December 9th. The children enjoyed meeting Santa and we enjoyed their happiness.
tn December 17, 2021 The club again supported the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Maria by presenting gifts to over 100 members. We love working with the club leaders and the joy on the faces of the children as they receive gifts from Santa.
On December 16, club members and Santa met at the Boys and Girls Club to give gifts to 75 children. Member Chad Weber was there to show off his car and give the children autographed pictures of his race car.
