Eliot Middleton’s father was a mechanic and, as a child, Eliot would watch him fix cars for people. At 38, Middleton owns a restaurant and his father had passed away. Hopefully, he keeps his memory alive by fixing junk cars and giving them to people in need. Public transportation isn’t well-established where he lives in South Carolina, so cars are essential. [1] He trades the broken-down vehicles with a plate of ribs from his restaurant, Middleton’s Village BBQ. Additionally, he started a GoFundMe to support his repairing of vehicles for those who need them.
“You don’t have a car, you don’t have a career,” Middleton explained. “How will people who have no reliable buses, no Ubers, travel to the city, where they would be able to find bigger jobs at the port authorities or manufacturing centers? They can’t walk 40, 50, 60 miles to great jobs — they have to settle for small-end jobs that pay well below what they need to survive.” [2]
Fixing Cars For Those In Need
Middleton turned this good deed into a nonprofit organization called Middl’eton’s Village to Village Foundation. On their Facebook page, they explain, “We repair donated cars to donate to families in rural South Carolina that are in need!”
By July 2021, he has collected about 100 cars and donated them to 33 members of his community — all for free. “Giving someone a car can change all that, and it does change all that,” he said. “I want to help everybody looking to better themselves when transportation is what’s holding them back.”
He decided to transform junk cars into working vehicles for people in November 2019. At that time, he had arranged a food drive that gave away 250 boxes of food from his restaurant. When he ran out of boxes, he walked outside and saw that the line was still two blocks long.
“That’s when I noticed most of those people just started walking back to the other side of town,” he said. “I caught up with some of them and found out they had walked three or four miles to get there to receive food, but couldn’t make it in time because they had no cars and they had to walk. I was very distraught to see that. That was the turning point in my life when I made the decision to actively give my time and skills to give back to my community.”