Exodus Homes’ Director of Operations Jerry Ratliff is seen with a donated 1990 Pathfinder that died this week of a bad transmission. The public is encouraged to donate cars, pick-up trucks, box trucks, and vans to the organization. The agency’s assistant executive director the Rev. Susan Smith says donating a vehicle to Exodus is more beneficial as a tax deduction than to other organizations. “The IRS regulations regarding donating vehicles changed several years ago, but donors can get the full value of the car as a tax deduction with us because we use the car in our organization rather than sell it to raise money.”Exodus Homes is a faith-based United Way agency that provides 82 beds of supportive housing for homeless recovering people returning to the community from treatment centers and prison with 10 program locations in Hickory. Transportation is provided seven days a week by volunteer resident drivers who take people back and forth to work, to look for a job, to recovery support groups, to medical appointments, and other places such as court, social services, the health department, and mental health. Residents are encouraged to use the bus, walk, or ride a bike whenever possible, but transportation in vehicles is still required on a daily basis.The organization uses donated cars in their transportation service, and has lost several lately to old age with worn out transmissions or blown engines. They are down to one car that can be used for general transportation purposes, and this is causing an overuse of their two full size passenger vans for groups of 5 or less. This is increasing their gasoline expense, and causing extreme difficulty in getting all 82 people where they need to go on time. Even when vans are needed in transporting all 82 residents at once to meetings or church, having only two vans requires multiple trips and is very time consuming.
Exodus Homes’ social enterprise Exodus Works also needs more pick-up trucks and box trucks to use in their moving, landscaping, and cleaning services that employ their residents. Exodus Works has experienced steady growth this year with the addition of a full time Business Developer that was funded by a one year grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. The growth of their businesses is slowed by the need for more vehicles to accept bigger jobs, and multiple jobs on the same day.
The public is encouraged to donate cars, pick-up trucks, box trucks, and vans to the organization. The agency’s assistant executive director the Rev. Susan Smith says donating a vehicle to Exodus is more beneficial as a tax deduction than to other organizations. “The IRS regulations regarding donating vehicles changed several years ago, but donors can get the full value of the car as a tax deduction with us because we use the car in our organization rather than sell it to raise money.”
To donate a vehicle to Exodus Homes, please contact the Rev. Susan Smith at 828-962-8196 or susansmith@charter.net.
