Your charitable vehicle donations help people struggling with addiction like Carmen find a new life and a new home.

Charitable vehicle donations to Volunteers of America support life changing programs right here in Nevada. When you donate a car you help people like Carmen - one of the many people fighting substance abuse and addiction given a second chance at life through charitable vehicle donations like yours. Her story demonstrates the transformation made possible by your car donation to charities:

The long and winding road to recovery brought Carmen to the Volunteers of America Women’s Shelter, where she is making progress overcoming an addiction to cocaine.

Carmen was referred to Volunteers of America by Case Management Services (CMS) of Nevada, through their work with the Nevada justice system. CMS and Volunteers of America staff partner together to ensure that participants receive drug testing, job readiness training, and learn life skills such as hygiene, time management, decision-making and problem solving. These skills, partially underwritten by charitable vehicle donations are critical in helping individuals like Carmen overcome addictions and prevent a return to jail.

Located at Volunteers of America’s Community Assistance Center, the Women’s Shelter provides 50 beds for homeless women. Thanks to charitable vehicle donations, residents like Carmen benefit from regular contact with a Volunteers of America case manager, structured environment, and access to a variety of resources designed to help women like Carmen get their lives back on track.

Carmen credits Volunteers of America’s shelter with helping her get more organized and follow a schedule. She is attending high school classes and working toward earning her GED. Carmen says Volunteers of America staff is always there with a word of support. “Whenever I have a problem, staff will listen and offer help,” said Carmen.

Carmen is the mother of a 7-year old son who lives with his grandparents and whom she has not seen in five years. Her immediate goal is to get clean and sober so she can see her son again. Her long-term goal is to go to college and pursue her dream of becoming a doctor someday. Charitable vehicle donations like yours are instrumental in helping Carmen move closer to achieving her goals.

As with all Women’s Shelter residents, Carmen attends a mandatory Life Skills class each week. Topics range from employment training to relationship skills. In a recent art activity, residents participated in a small group collage project to reflect on positive experiences with the program and with fellow residents, in part to provide encouragement to future residents who will follow in their footsteps someday.

Shelter residents also enjoy visits from former residents who have benefitted from programs funded by charitable vehicle donations, and return to share their stories of success reaching stability, finding employment and housing.

Meanwhile, she continues to attend relapse prevention classes and is a regular visitor to the Resource Center next door, using computers, receiving mail, and signing up for other services. Other services located on site at the Community Assistance Center campus include the Good Shepherd Clothes Closet, which distributes donated clothing for free to shelter residents on a monthly basis. The HAWC Outreach Medical Clinic provides basic medical services ranging from immunizations to HIV testing and referrals for free. We rely on charitable vehicle donations - cars, trucks and even golf carts in order to continue to offer these services free of charge to the people in Nevada who desperately need them.

In this structured, resource rich environment, Carmen has already found a job working at a local casino, and has impressed shelter staff with her determination to “avail herself of all available resources, work hard and participate in all the classes provided. She is an inspiration to the other clients.”

Nearing the end of third month at the Women’s Shelter, Carmen says her time there has been the “strengthening experience” she needed in order to turn her life around – and it was all made possible thanks to charitable vehicle donations from every corner of Nevada – from Las Vegas to Reno, Carson City, Paradise, Henderson and Elko.