Giving away cars to give families second chances

Salisbury Native William Toadvine is the general manager of Dream Cars in Delmar, Del. In the past thirty days, he’s given away three cars with no strings attached to families in need.

Over the next year, he and his wife Christy plan it to give away fifty more. They’re doing it because two years ago, they knew exactly how it felt to be down and out.

“We had lost about everything,” said Toadvine. “Tom and Daniel Hopkins gave me a big opportunity two years ago that really changed our life so, we wanted to help out and give back and make that difference in other peoples lives too.”

In 2013, Toadvine had just finished a stint in prison for conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

Toadvine and his former colleague were found guilty of presenting false and misleading loan applications to lenders while operating a used car lot in South Carolina.

Now that he’s back on his feet, he and his wife have started Operation Wheel Care to help others who have hit hard times and need a car to get where they need to go.

“It’s a great feeling to know that you know you can help a person, whether it be spending more time with family with transportation or getting a job that they need to move to that next step in life, it’s important to us,” Toadvine said.

Toadvine and his wife Christy pay the expenses all out of pocket for the cars they give, usually the cars are trade-ins Toadvine said.

“If we take one in that comes in in decent condition that we don’t think it would be a problem to the person we award it to, we’ll stand behind it for a year to make sure it’s maintained and under a warranty so they don’t have any extra additional expenses,” Toadvine said.

Applicants write in to Toadvine on his Facebook and after a screening process the winners are chosen.