Sheldon, Iowa — A Sheldon man who won a refurbished 2001 Oldsmobile Intrigue in a raffle held earlier this year to raise funds for Northwest Iowa Community College’s Charitable Chariots program, has decided to use the car to “pay it forward”.
After winning the car, Randy Kruse of Sheldon became aware of an NCC student who had also purchased a raffle ticket, but hadn’t won. When Kruse found out that this student, Sonia Garza of Hull, was in desperate need of reliable transportation, he decided to give her the car he had just won.
Kruse calls NCC’s Charitable Chariots a great program for the community and said he will continue to buy tickets for the car raffle to support it. He said that, since he didn’t need a car, he wanted to “pay it forward” and help someone who did.
Garza, who lives in Hull, is in the Administrative Secretarial program at NCC. She says she was having a lot of trouble with her car all winter. She said she had been forced to borrow a car to get to class, so this couldn’t have come at a better time for her and her family.
Garza has since told the instructors from the Charitable Chariots program that she is going to donate her old car to the program, in an effort to pay-it-forward.
This is something different for the Charitable Chariots program. Normally the students in the Program join together along with Iowa based businesses to repair and service automobiles for the purpose of donating back to area families in need. The families that receive the donated vehicles are selected by area social service agencies.
If you are interested in donating to the Charitable Chariots program, please contact Mark Steinle at Northwest Iowa Community College. You can call him at (712) 324-5061 or email him at msteinle@nwicc.edu.
