02/23/2026
Love 💓
For a single mother, a broken-down car isn't an inconvenience -- it's a crisis. It means missed shifts, lost jobs, children stranded without rides to school or daycare, and a spiral that's difficult to stop once it starts. In Mineral, Virginia, a group of high school students and a small nonprofit called Giving Words are working to make sure that spiral never begins -- by repairing donated cars and giving them to single moms who need them most.
The students are part of the Louisa County High School's automotive technology program, and their work is done in partnership with Giving Words, a local nonprofit founded by Ginny and Eddie Brown in 2018. Both were single parents before they met, and both knew what it felt like when a car broke down and everything else threatened to break down with it.
"The idea came from our own experience being single parents and struggling with transportation issues," Brown said. "A broken-down car means she can lose her job, miss her appointments. They're relying on Ubers, buses, and family, and some of those can be unreliable." The couple decided to focus on single moms since over 80% of single parents in the U.S. are mothers.
It started simply -- Brown fixing cars in his own driveway for single mothers he knew, using mechanical skills he'd taught himself over the years. "I had the mechanical experience being able to work on our own cars, so I could work on these moms' cars," he said. But he quickly saw the potential to multiply his impact by partnering with the local school system.
"I could multiply what I was doing in my driveway by doing it in the school system," Brown said. "Doing that also builds character and empathy in our youth because the students work on the car and get it prepared, and we actually bring the mom and her family into the school system so those students can see that process of what their work has done within the community."
Today, about twenty students work on each vehicle under the guidance of automotive teacher Shane Robertson, handling everything from brake and tire repairs to heating and cooling systems, oil and fluid changes, and battery testing. They work on roughly five cars a year. Once a car is ready, it's towed to a partner repair shop for a safety inspection, then brought back to the school for the big reveal.
"The last one we did, we roll up the garage door and, the moment of surprise, you have to be there to see it," Robertson said. "You've got real life intersecting with education."
The emotional weight of that intersection isn't lost on the students. "They do the work, and they really don't know the emotions that come along with seeing a single mom have transportation restored, how it's going to affect their kids," Brown said. "So it's just special for them. And so there's times that we have students that are in tears just because they get to see this full emotion of this mom."
Among the most powerful stories is that of Jessica Rader, a single mother of three who received a 2007 gold Toyota Prius refurbished by the students. Before the car, Rader had no vehicle and no job. After the donation, she was able to start working and provide safe transportation for her children.
"Kids who never met me cared about me enough to put hard work into a vehicle to make sure myself and my kids were safe," Rader said. "I got to meet all of them; it was breathtaking."
The car changed the trajectory of her life. Rader now works for a nonprofit called Zoe Freedom Center, which supports people overcoming addiction. "Now I can teach people and show them through my testimony how life can be better," she said. “It’s not just about the car. It’s about community.”
Since its founding, Giving Words has given away more than 60 cars and repaired more than 260 vehicles for single mothers. The organization also connects mothers with community resources like food assistance, budgeting help, and emergency aid -- because, as Brown explains, the car is often what everything else turns on.
"The car repair component and transportation is really a hinge point on everything else, because it pivots on work, it pivots on your housing. It relieves an immediate stress."
The program has also created a student giveback component. For the past three years, a graduating student has received a car of their own to help them get to college or work -- a detail Brown calls "a neat component to be able to give back to the school system."
Now, Giving Words is looking to expand into five new Virginia locations -- Chesterfield, Staunton, Lynchburg, Williamsburg, and Wi******er -- with a fundraising goal of approximately $20,000 and plans to donate six cars to six women in the new communities. "If we can raise the money, with the car donations and the financial support, we can move into these other markets and model this," Brown said.
Brown sees the work as both deeply personal and endlessly replicable. "Being able to get the students involved has a direct impact on them," he observes. "Everything has a ripple effect."
--> To support Giving Words' program to provide single moms with reliable transportation, visit https://givingwordsva.org
-->If you live in Central Virginia, they also accept car donations at https://givingwordsva.org/car_donation
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For Mighty Girl books that teach children about the value of helping others in your community, visit our blog post: "Making an Impact: 40 Mighty Girl Books About Charity and Community Service” at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=10983
For books for children and teens about people helping others in their communities experiencing hardship, visit our blog post "Cultivating Compassion: 25 Books About Financial Hardship Close to Home" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog/?p=10049
For empathy-building book for young kids about the importance of compassion and being kind to others, visit our blog post "25 Children's Books That Teach Kids to Be Kind," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=19359
For two wonderful books that help foster children's compassion for others by giving them a visual way to think about kindness, we also recommend "Have You Filled a Bucket Today: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids" for ages 4 to 8 (https://www.amightygirl.com/have-you-filled-a-bucket-today) and "Growing Up With A Bucket Full Of Happiness" for ages 9 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/growing-up-with-a-bucket-full-of-happiness)
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To read more about the program in The Washington Post, visit https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2026/01/12/car-repair-high-school-students-single-moms/
