Weinberg Foundation Grants $500K to Vehicles for Change

A nonprofit that awards cars low-income families got a major jump-start on its new headquarters thanks to a generous grant from the Weinberg Foundation.

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation awarded a $500,000 capital grant to Vehicles for Change, a Halethorpe-based nonprofit.

The grant will help pay for renovations to the group’s new headquarters, a 33,000-square-foot warehouse on 2.4 acres that was purchased in July 2012, according to a press release.

Since 1999, Vehicles for Change has awarded more than 4,000 cars to low-income families in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia, impacting the lives of more than 14,000 individuals.

The group’s 2011 study said that 73 percent of Vehicles for Change car buyers were able to get better jobs or increase their income, according to the release.

The new facility will allow the nonprofit to open an automotive training center this year, where dealers and mechanics from low-income backgrounds, including veterans, ex-offenders, people from foster homes and the unemployed will pick up new skills. The group expects to train 60 to 75 people a year, the release said.

Vehicles for Changes also added a six-bay garage to its new facility so it could repair donated cars on-site, the release said.

“The Weinberg Foundation supports this program not only because VFC serves those in critical need in one of our hometowns, but also because the foundation sees this as a potentially great model to share nationally,” Barry Schloss, Weinberg Foundation Trustee, said in the release.

The nonprofit moved out of its Relay facility in May 2012 after community opposition to its growing used car business.