Changing Lives One Car at a Time

How would you live from day to day without a car?  How would you hold a job, feed your family, see your doctor, or go to school?  For many of our neighbors in rural Southern Illinois - through no fault of their own - this is a real and daily struggle.  That's why we at Marion Toyota and Marion Collision Center are proud to announce Project CAR, our newest community service program through which we rehab older vehicles and make them available to the neediest in neighborhoods across our core service counties for just $1.

At Marion Toyota and Marion Collision Center, our team members have the technical expertise, equipment and access to parts so that an otherwise unwanted vehicle can be rehabbed and put back into reliable service for someone who needs it.

Project CAR - Caring Auto Rehab is our joint community initiative that fills the gap and pairs those who have a need with those who can help provide a solution. Because we believe that we're all in this together and we're all neighbors here in southern Illinois, we want to help people for whom car ownership would otherwise be out of reach but who can demonstrate that mobility would significantly dramatically improve their quality of life.

Having read over 200 stories from our first round of applications, we now know the situation is even worse than we thought.  It's not only possible but far too common for people in southern Illinois to lack access to even basic transportation, causing them to lose jobs, fail to receive needed medical treatment, and face great hardship in caring for their children and themselves.  Our first Project CAR award was made possible by a generous, caring couple who wished to turn an old vehicle into a new future for someone in need.  Additional Project CAR awards are waiting only for more generous people to step forward and say, "Yes, let's work together and change more lives!"

How It Works

How You Can Help

  If now or in the future you have an older car that might be suitable for repair and reconditioning to help a family in need, please contact us to learn how you can partner with Project CAR.

  If you have a car that is not in operating condition but you'd still like for it to benefit the program, contact us to see how it could be salvaged to assist with Project CAR expenses.

  If you don't have a car that you could make available to the program, you can always choose to help with the expense of acquiring and rehabbing vehicles for Project CAR.

Use the CONTACT US TO HELP
button above, or email us at projectcar@mariontoyota.com,
or call 618-364-4828.