SAN ANTONIO, TX – Last week at AAPEX, Aftermarket Auto Parts Alliance unveiled a new nationwide charitable program through which members of Bumper to Bumper and Auto Value will utilize their unique automotive skills and resources to help provide refurbished vehicles to victims of domestic abuse in their communities. aftermarketNews had the chance to learn a bit more about the campaign from Alliance President and CEO Richard “Dick” Morgan.
Aftermarket Auto Parts Alliance rolled out a new nationwide charitable campaign at AAPEX, which was inspired by a successful program developed by Bumper to Bumper member Lee Auto Parts last June. Can you tell us how the program got started?
The Service Dealer Advisory Council Empowerment Group of Lee Auto Parts asked for a PR campaign that would upgrade the image of service centers and to do something that would give back to their local community. After researching different options, they decided on and developed the Charity Cars Campaign.
How did the Alliance come to the decision to take the event nationwide?
In 2005 at our Annual Winter Shareholders meeting, the folks from Lee Auto Parts presented their program. It was well received by our members and vendors. With that overwhelming embracement of the program the membership took a vote. Every one of our shareholders thought it was a remarkable program and got behind it 100 percent.
With so many wonderful charitable organizations that need support, how did you decide to work with The Original 1-800 Charity Cars organization?
This charitable non-profit organization’s expertise is in the delivery of vehicles to disadvantaged families. There are a lot of worthy groups out there that help people but there’s a limited amount that coordinate vehicle donations. We’re car people and we were looking for a tie-in to our industry. We did that with The Original 1-800 Charity Cars who have been giving away vehicles for more than 10 years. With our combined abilities, we’re a perfect match.
How will the program be conducted on a national level? How will your various members help out? Will Alliance vendor partners be involved as well?
The campaign will be coordinated through our office in San Antonio. We’ve retained a chairman [Dale Leigh]. He’s the same person that chaired the Lee Auto Parts campaign so his knowledge and experience is invaluable. All levels of distribution will be involved from our WDs to our parts stores and certified service centers to our vendor partners. The WDs will be cheerleaders for the stores; stores will be providing parts to the service centers; and service centers will be performing the labor, and 15 of our vendors are donating parts. Also, our stores and service centers will be soliciting vehicles from their communities.
Has the Alliance ever created a campaign of this size before?
We’ve had programs in which all of our members have participated, but we’ve had nothing on a scale like this.
To your knowledge, has anything like this ever been done in the industry before?
When Lee Auto Parts gave away 100 cars in 2005, to my knowledge that was the largest single vehicle give-away by one company. So, next year with Auto Value and Bumper to Bumper prepared to give away more than 500 vehicles, I feel we’re going to achieve a goal that has never even been attempted on such a large scale.
How did Alliance members respond to the idea?
We asked each of our members to commit to refurbishing at least one vehicle. Everyone responded with a pledge; some said they could do one vehicle while others promised 10 or more. Their commitments demonstrate their support of this campaign 100 percent.
