Maryland car dealer, nonprofit partner to donate cars to local veterans

BALTIMORE -- A Baltimore-area partnership is giving back to veterans this Veterans Day. Ten veterans from the area received new cars.

Navy Veteran D'Andre Jenson was one of them.

"I'm not going to lie," Jenson said. "Real happy to have this car, excited. It makes everything a whole lot easier because I was kind of struggling to get to work."

Heritage MileOne AutoGroup and nonprofit Vehicles for Change teamed up to gift the cars.

"This partnership is about changing lives, and we believe access to reliable transportation is truly transformative," Scott Fader with MileOne AutoGroup said.

MileOne and Veterans for Change have been giving out cars since 2017. They've given them to many deserving people, including teachers and first responders.

That's not all they do, Vehicles for Change has a school that trains ex-offenders and those who are unemployed to become auto technicians.

"To have the opportunity to give back to those individuals who have served our country, have put their lives on the line day-in and day-out for us so that we can do things like, this is just an honor for us," Vehicles For Change President Martin Schwartz said.

MileOne has hired 11 of the organization's auto tech graduates.

Jenson is one of them.

"It actually just lets everybody know that there are good people out here and there are programs that want to help people out," Jenson said.

To date, MileOne and Vehicles for Change have given out more than 200 cars, valued at more than $1.5 million.