Marty Schwartz is the President at Vehicles for Change in Baltimore, and wow, what a conversation we had. I had an absolute blast learning about this marvelous non-profit helping people get back on their feet.
When we hit the bottom of the hole, it is not easy to dig yourself out. If you are just getting out of incarceration, you have to get a job, and how do you get to the job? If you have no money and no transportation, it is impossible to keep the requirements of your probation.
What about the single mom needing a job and no transportation? We cover what Marty has been working on with training and getting people a helping hand.
Thank you, Marty, for stopping by the podcast; I had an absolute blast!
If you can donate a car, please reach out to Marty’s LinkedIn HERE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-schwartz-49b85218/
Or on the Vehicles for Change Website: https://www.vehiclesforchange.org/online-car-donation/
Highlights of the Podcast
00:57 – Tell us about what vehicles for a change actually is.
04:17 – How did you come up with you starting this?
08:49 – How do we get you nationwide?
10:42 – What’s the right information about energy?
15:16 – How do you find the partners to help you with?
21:22 – Is there anything else they can do besides donate a card?
23:23 – Can they ship you a car and then take that shipping fee off their taxes?
39:08 – How do people connect with you?
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– Get in Contact With The Show –
Stuart Turley [00:00:03] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy News podcast. My name’s Stu Turley, president and CEO of the Sandstone Group. You know, energy poverty is a real thing. But not only that, we have to be able to get people out of poverty, period. And there are some programs around the United States as we talk about EVs, We talk about cars, internal combustion cars. We have a very special guest today. I have Martin Schwartz, and he is the president at Vehicles for Change. And I am very impressed with their not for profit. And we want to cover what they’re doing. Welcome, Martin, and thanks for stopping by the podcast.
Martin Schwartz [00:00:46] Absolutely. Happy to be here. Thank you for the invite.
Stuart Turley [00:00:49] I’ll tell you for a podcast, listeners, you’ve got a great picture for a backdrop and you got a guy working on that car. Tell us about what vehicles for a change actually is.
Martin Schwartz [00:01:02] Yeah, so Vehicles for Change. We launched this program back in 1999 and we really address yeah, in a couple of days we’ll be 25 years old now. So a very exciting year coming up.
Stuart Turley [00:01:15] Also for our podcast listeners for us, good looking guys on this podcast, we have the same hair line and we’re both peeling out glasses in order to look at this. So even though his company, his not for profit, is 25 years old, we’re not.
Martin Schwartz [00:01:32] You know, by a long shot.
Stuart Turley [00:01:35] So I didn’t mean to cut you. All right. So good.
Martin Schwartz [00:01:39] Yeah. So Vehicles for change really addresses two of the major issues that impact generational poverty, transportation and incarceration. So when we launched the program back in 99, our main focus was to address the transportation issue that families have in gaining a job, and that’s getting a car. And so we take donated cars and I’m like 99.9% of the organizations that take donated cars across the country. We actually the good cars, we actually repair. And then we work with organizations throughout Maryland and Northern Virginia that are domestic violence programs, job training programs, rehabilitation programs. And they identify for us the individual who needs a car to get out of poverty. And so we sell them a car. It’s not it’s a handout. Not a handout. They they pay $950 for their car, but we guarantee a loan for them. So they get a loan through a local bank. So they establish credit while they’re paying for their car and they get a six month, 6000 mile warranty with their car. So we make sure that the car stays on the road while they’re getting back on their feet. And they can bring their car back to any one of our four locations, get it repaired at our cost as long as they own the car.
Stuart Turley [00:03:00] Wow. How sweet is that? Because that is such a problem. I’ve had family members go. All of a sudden, they’re getting there. They’re on their feet again. And it was a problem getting the car right.
Martin Schwartz [00:03:13] And then the car breaks down and you’re making minimum wage. You’re trying to make ends meet.
Stuart Turley [00:03:19] And you’ve got childcare.
Martin Schwartz [00:03:20] In your car to.
Stuart Turley [00:03:21] Feed. You got it. You know, you got inflation. Right. I don’t want to use the word Biden nomics because it might, you know, get the show thrown off the air. But you know, if it applies. Right. Yeah.
Martin Schwartz [00:03:37] So then the other piece of our program is, is that in 2016, we launched what we call the full Circle Auto Repair and Training Center. So as we were developing our program, we thought, you know, why don’t we train individuals to be mechanics? We have this great facility. We could get the cars fixed at a less expensive cost because now we’re using them as training devices. So now we train individuals with multiple barriers to employment, most of whom are coming right out of incarceration to be auto mechanics.
Stuart Turley [00:04:07] Wow, how cool is this? This is really neat because the guy people need another break when they no matter how they are. How did you come up with you starting this? How did you get this rolling? Because this is a heavy lift. This is not something lightweight.
Martin Schwartz [00:04:29] Yeah. So I always tell people that I really didn’t have a choice. Somehow a power higher than myself decided this is what I was going to do. I was in athletics most of my life. I was a high school baseball and soccer coach. I coached college baseball. I was the associate athletic director for development at NBC in Maryland. I left there in 96, started my own company, which was an Internet related business, which in 1996 was a dumb idea because nobody knew what the heck the Internet was other than me. And I thought everybody should know what the Internet is. And that was an athletic related business. So in 98, I literally ran into this company called Precision Startup Pro. They were trying to figure out how to get cars in the hands of low income families. They wanted to build this nonprofit within their organization. And we had a conversation one day and they said, Why don’t you come do this? And I said, I’ve got nothing else to do right now, so let’s do it. And that’s how this whole thing got started. I mean, it was, you know, the car idea was not my idea. The way we developed it and all the pieces, the loan and the, the, the, the charging them for the car, providing them with the warranty, all of that was was what I developed for the organization. But the idea of, hey, let’s get these cars and get them to families was not my idea. The training program was my idea. And then most recently, we launched what we call VFX VR, where we’re now using virtual reality to train auto mechanics.
Stuart Turley [00:06:05] No way.
Martin Schwartz [00:06:07] Yes, it is. It is.
Stuart Turley [00:06:09] Incredibly cool. Okay. I am looking at your reach that you have done on this and I want to do the reach versus the need. The reach is you’ve done over 7500 cars on your Web site in as well, and then 25,000 people you’ve helped. And then you take a look at you need 81,000 homes with loan income in or in the area and a 135 33,000. Um, yeah, that’s that’s a lot of people. You can still help.
Martin Schwartz [00:06:45] Yeah, it’s the need transportation. When we started this program was the number one barrier to employment for families living in poverty. If you think about. That the way the US is set up and neighborhoods, right? We have these neighborhoods all over the country, whether you’re in a rural area, whether you’re in urban areas, it doesn’t make any difference. You think about people who live in poverty, they all live in the same neighborhoods, Right. And they’re locked in those neighborhoods and they’re locked in poverty by a lack of transportation. If you live in those impoverished neighborhoods, a lot of times there’s no public transportation coming to or from those neighborhoods, Right. So there’s no way that they’re getting the job. Their children are getting a job. Their children’s children aren’t getting employed because you can’t get there. So I always tell people I can go down to the most impoverished neighborhood in Baltimore City and I can give everybody a Ph.D. And guess what? None of them are going to work because they can’t get there. So the most valuable tool you can give to somebody living in poverty is a car. Before, before training, before education, before anything.
Stuart Turley [00:07:53] And then you tied the facilities and you encompass the entire circle on this project. So you have the training available. If that is down somebody’s road, you know, if it’s in their wheelhouse, You know, I missed my 43 willies, you know, because that was an old flathead that I actually knew how to work on. And, you know, it kind of tells you my age.
Martin Schwartz [00:08:24] Yeah, that technology has changed just a little bit.
Stuart Turley [00:08:26] Yeah. You know, the electric vehicles. Old Tesla has a recall on almost all of them. I’m wondering if we can’t get Elon on the phone and have him set up a whole branch for you to get people to donate. Wouldn’t that be fun?
Martin Schwartz [00:08:47] That would be amazing.
Stuart Turley [00:08:49] How do we get you nationwide? Is it just a money issue or is there a way to franchise out your your how do we how do we get more of these?
Martin Schwartz [00:09:00] It’s absolutely so our our goal actually, we’re focused on opening 20 new locations in the next five years now. So we are and and the virtual reality that we developed we are putting into prisons, high schools, you know, because there’s a big push right now in high schools to have more CTE programs.
Stuart Turley [00:09:20] How cool is that?
Martin Schwartz [00:09:22] Yeah. So think about if you wanted to put an automotive training program, a typical automotive training program in a high school, if first year cost alone is over a half a million dollars, and that’s if you have a building with a 20 foot ceiling. I can put a virtual reality training program in a high school for $30,000 and train 60 to 80 people a year. And they don’t need a teach. They don’t need an instructor. They don’t need equipment. They don’t need any cars. They don’t need oil. They don’t have gas smell. They don’t have any of those issues. And I can train people using virtually and I have employers, you know, saying that this is great training. So we’ve got it. You know, we’ve got to come in from a variety of dealerships and and, you know, garage owners that say, hey, this is great training and I’ll hire somebody that has this kind of training.
Stuart Turley [00:10:19] So the certification means something. Yes, it’s not. Here’s the there’s a couple of things going on. I’m sorry. I forget, you know, I’m just excited about this. And that is we’re working on getting our homeschooling for all of our podcasts and our energy because there’s so much different information out there. What’s the right information about energy? Is is it wind? Is it solar? Is it carbon? Is it this? And there’s just all kind we need to use all kinds of energy in order to get elevate out of energy poverty. Homeschooling and virtual training is even more critical now. And I’m sitting here thinking virtual and home training would be even more important if you can’t get to school somewhere or if you can, you can’t even get to a vocational school. It’s you’re still back at square one.
Martin Schwartz [00:11:18] That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. And it’s difficult. I mean, you think about, you know, one of the things that we we see, particularly for individuals coming out of incarceration, right, is very often they have to go to parole and probation. Well, how are they going to get there? Right. I mean, that’s a challenge is how do I get approved probation and then part of your parole and probation a lot of times is you have to get a job. Well, how am I going to get a job if there’s no way to get there?
Stuart Turley [00:11:49] Wow. This is not. This is the worst part of a catch 22, isn’t it?
Martin Schwartz [00:11:54] It sure is. I mean, people don’t realize, you know, you and I, I’m talking for you, but I get up in the morning, I go out, I put the key in my car, I turn it and I drive to work. And when my kids were little and they had soccer practice or we’re in the area for lacrosse, there’s lacrosse practice. We do having to practice. So when you think about, you know, even if a single mom and a lot of the folks who get cars from us are single mothers. On average before they get their car. They’re taking the bus for 90 to 120 minutes a day to get back, to get to work and then get home. Right. That’s about the overall still the impact of that. Right. I’ve got to get my kids up number one at 4:00 in the morning so I can get them to daycare. Right. And I’m doing it on the bus. And then at night, I’ve got to take the bus all the way backward. So now I’ve got to pay extra because my kid can’t get out daycare until 630 because it took me an hour and a half to get there. And if the kids are in.
Stuart Turley [00:12:58] School.
Martin Schwartz [00:12:59] Now, we have kids at home from 3:00 in the afternoon until 7:00 at night when mom gets home. So now you hear all over the country right now, right. Of of these car thefts and carjackings and they’re being done by 12 and 13 and 14 year old kids. I’d like to know how many of those kids whose moms are trying to work, but they’re taking public transportation and they’re not getting home till 7:00 at night, so they have no idea where their kid is between them. They can’t afford to pay somebody to watch them because they’re making $15 an hour.
Stuart Turley [00:13:38] And it is not the time. When I grew up, mom would throw us out and we would be gone until the evening. And then parents back then would have to have that 10:00 warning. It’s 10:00. Do you know where your kids are in that kind of world anymore?
Martin Schwartz [00:13:56] It’s not. It’s not.
Stuart Turley [00:13:59] Now. I kind of enjoyed being out. I mean, we we were never home. I mean.
Martin Schwartz [00:14:06] I was always at the ball field one way or the other. And I mean, my parents knew where we were, but I was, you know, ten, 12, 14 blocks away from home at ball yard playing basketball or baseball or whatever season it was. And we were out not have.
Stuart Turley [00:14:20] Did not have cell phones. They couldn’t track you. I mean, it was and the worst part about it was I was such a klutz, Martin, that I would come home with broken arms and stitches, you know, So, you know, I felt sorry for my wife and my mom. And they’re they’re different so that she, you know, well, maybe they both can or controlling that will leave all that alone. Maybe will have they added or cut that.
Martin Schwartz [00:14:51] Out.
Stuart Turley [00:14:52] Or not. Yes. But anyway, so I tell you, this is exciting. And what are some of your you’ve got 20 that you want to do in the next five years. What are the your next steps to get that done? You’ve got to raise money. You’ve got to find the money. And I’m assuming that’s it or who. How do you find the partners to help you with? Because there is another way to do that.
Martin Schwartz [00:15:21] Yeah. So we have national partners on our board of directors. So the National Automobile Dealers Association is on our board. Napa Auto Parts is on our board. The American Corrections Association, the executive director of the American Corrections Association is on our board. So we have these national partners that we work with and that right now we’re working with some folks in Delaware. They’re looking at raising money. So they’re looking at raising the cost to fund the program. For the first two years. We’re working with some people in in Minnesota. We’re looking at putting some sort of a program so it doesn’t have to be a full fledged program. For instance, we’re working with some folks in Dallas to potentially put virtual reality in the prisons. So there is that that would be a Vehicles for Change program in the prisons. But it’s we don’t need to have staff. We all we have to do is get the virtual reality there. And then we would work with them, with our national partners as far as placement for individuals. So we also have other national partners that we work with, like precision to which we work with them to help them find technicians when we have training in their particular area. Napa Auto Parts has 18,000 auto care centers across the country. So for us, if we can get a virtual reality training program in an area and then we can work with that entity that’s running the training and help them with the placement. Because right now there’s more than 80,000 openings for auto technicians across this country and they pay really good money.
Stuart Turley [00:17:03] Oh, absolutely. There’s some people in this world you don’t want to hack off your plumber, your doctor and your auto mechanic, because if you that and you’re mean to any of those people, you’re just toast and you know, it. It just is amazing to me. This program is out there and I apologize. I never heard of you. And I just really appreciate, you know, how we got connected and everything else, because we’re going to have all of those sponsors in the show note and on your board members so that people can realize who’s taking care of you and your contact information as well. Thank you. Because this to me is an add on to getting people out of energy poverty. You got to get them to the job. You got to get them in to the low cost. I would love this. These were electric vehicles, but you and I were talking. You can’t get a charging station in the disproportionately impacted communities it in there.
Martin Schwartz [00:18:10] Now they’re not going to have a way to charge them. You know, they’re not going to be able to run an extension cord from their house out to a car. You know, if they’re in a high rise facility in the city, you know, that’s a challenge if they’re living in rural areas, you know, and then if you could get them a car, you start to pay 20 $500 to have a charging station put in your house. Right now, they’ve got to decide whether to put a charging station or whether they’re going to feed their kids, because 20 $500 is a pretty big nut.
Stuart Turley [00:18:40] Oh, absolutely. If there’s anybody listening to this podcast and you got an idea how to get an EV program in, I think that would be absolutely phenomenal. There may be places for the training because it’s kind of like a diesel mechanic, diesel mechanics. You know, I, I love diesel mechanics, so, you know, and my dad owned a truck stop. It was kind of like they were absolutely gold.
Martin Schwartz [00:19:11] Oh, yeah. And some of our guys have gone diesel and we have some diesel programs that we work with, diesel companies that do repairs and some of it they come in and hire our guys, you know, and they say, Well, we teach, will you train them in diesel? I said, Now what I’ll do is I’ll provide you with a great employee who’s a really good mechanic and great on how to handle how to do a diesel work. We have guys making 100, $125,000 a year, been out of prison. They were incarcerated for 20 years and four years later they’re making $125,000 a year as a diesel mechanic.
Stuart Turley [00:19:46] And they will always be in high demand. It’s not going to happen. Now, California or our beloved governor out in California has put a mandate out there to get rid of diesel trucks by, you know, I think 20, 20, 30 years on.
Martin Schwartz [00:20:03] And yeah, good luck.
Stuart Turley [00:20:04] Any good luck, dude? I don’t know I don’t get that. So these are mechanics are going to be around a while.
Martin Schwartz [00:20:10] Yeah they are. And you know, look, even with electric cars and such, people say, well, you know, but you still have brakes, you still have suspension, you still have, you know, all of those basic things that still need work. And so, you know, our guys are still going to be in high demand and there’s still there’s 300 million cars on the road and only 2% of them are electric right now. So. These guys are going to be in high demand for a long time. And we’re actually adding we’re going to be adding every repair to our virtual reality within the next probably 12 to 18 months.
Stuart Turley [00:20:47] You know what? I’m getting a little irritated, Martin. I keep coming up with these really, really cool ideas. And you’re already going, I got this, I got this, I got this. I’m over here going, Oh, I’m not that smart. I mean, you’ve already got a lot of this kook and how. Hey, man, I wake.
Martin Schwartz [00:21:04] Up at 2:00 in the morning and think of this.
Stuart Turley [00:21:06] Stuff. Oh, man, this is absolutely cool. So your website is Vehicles for Change dot org, and they just reach you there either on your LinkedIn or I’ll have that in the show notes. Is there anything else they can do besides donate a card? I’m assuming that’s a tax benefit.
Martin Schwartz [00:21:28] It is a tax benefit. If the card goes to a family, it’s actually you get to deduct the fair market value. So particularly for those families that are in the Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey area, if it’s a good car that we can we can put into the program, we do still selling a lot of cars to auction, 100% of that money that proceeds go back into supporting our program. So even if you’re in Minnesota and you have a car to donate, that money will go back to supporting the families that we serve or go back into our training program to train somebody coming out of prison. So, you know, they can do that. We also take cash donations. So if people feel so inclined to make a cash donation. You know, if you’re if you’re still concerned about the legitimacy of our program, CNN did a piece on us. You can still go in on YouTube and search CNN vehicles for change. And you can see our YouTube piece that CNN did about six months ago.
Stuart Turley [00:22:31] So fantastic.
Martin Schwartz [00:22:33] Yeah, we were very lucky this past year. We were on the Kelly Clarkson show. So Kelly Clarkson got us a little bit of national PR, which was kind of fun. So CNN and Automotive News, Voice of America Motor Week, we’ve gotten a tremendous amount of publicity in this last 12 months.
Stuart Turley [00:22:54] We’re in 150 countries. So I’m going to guess that somebody from Mozambique is not going to call you for a tax deduction.
Martin Schwartz [00:23:02] Yeah, probably not.
Stuart Turley [00:23:05] Hey, but I got an idea, though. I had one of my cars shipped from Alaska and it was only like $900. If you have a car and you’re in California and you want to get a tax break, because if you’re in California, you need a tax break. Or if you’re in New York, can they ship you a car and then take that shipping fee off their taxes? Is that is I don’t even begin to think of that. But it would make sense that you could.
Martin Schwartz [00:23:36] I’m not sure, but it certainly would make sense that they paid for that. What they could do is if they want their car shipped here and they want that as a deduction, they could they could donate the $900 and then we pay for the shipping and then they would certainly be able to take that.
Stuart Turley [00:23:57] Says the man that has been doing this for 25 years. Here’s another example. I’m over here thinking I’m pretty cool. You already got a solution for this man. Burn That is B, because I can see people wanting to donate their cars from all over the U.S..
Martin Schwartz [00:24:15] Yeah, Yeah. And if they want and shipping isn’t bad. I know that we’ve had cars shipped from as far away as Massachusetts for about $500. So I figure, you know, we can get them from, you know, out in in probably Alabama any any anywhere within an eight hour distance from Baltimore. Yeah. And then I think you’re right, you can ship a car from California for about 1100 dollars.
Stuart Turley [00:24:44] Well, if they’re going to go on a U-Haul coming this way, it’s about $17,000. If you’re a U-Haul going from your place to California, it’s probably three. Nobody’s going to California. And that was a joke for you. But anyway, well, thank you so much for stopping by the podcast. I really do. Outstanding. I hope I hear from you again, and if you ever have any updates, let us know and we will get the word out for you.
Martin Schwartz [00:25:18] Absolutely. And now, you know, we track where our donations come from. So if we start saying that, you know, donations are coming from all over the country and, you know, they say, we heard you on the podcast, we’ll certainly let you know if we get a couple of cars out of it.
Stuart Turley [00:25:32] Oh, that would be fabulous. And if I’m in your area, I’m going to come do a live podcast from your location because this is an important word to get out. So think would be great.
Martin Schwartz [00:25:42] You got an opening. Where are you still where are you located?
Stuart Turley [00:25:45] Well, I’ve got three places. I migrate between West Texas, Dallas and my place up in Bear country. And now my my lake house has got a overpopulation of bears in mind.
Martin Schwartz [00:25:59] Well, we’re we’re actually working on a program in Houston and in Dallas right now, so I might be out your way.
Stuart Turley [00:26:06] I hate dinner’s on me. I would love to see you. Thank you very much.
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