Maricella De Leon struggled to get to work and her many doctor’s appointments after her car broke down in 2017.

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The Cars 4 Columbia program made all the difference for De Leon when she was selected in March 2018 as one of the program’s first vehicle recipients. The Saturn SL she received has allowed her to reach appointments without worrying about who could give her a ride.

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Medical issues have recently kept De Leon and her husband from working. She worked at a doctor’s office in Kansas City, when Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder, affected her vision so much that her doctor decided she needed to stop looking at screens all day, she said.

 

“I just can’t look at the screen for that long, because my eyes start going cross and I have double or triple vision, I need to rest my eyes,” she said.

 

De Leon also has arthritis in her knees, neck and spine, which require lots of appointments. When she and her husband’s car broke down, getting to those appointments became an ordeal.

 

The city’s bus system doesn’t pick up close enough to  De Leon’s home for her to walk, and she didn’t want to keep bothering her children, who work long hours, she said. She was also still working at the time, and needed a more reliable way to get to work.

 

De Leon couldn’t afford a down payment on another car so for a few months, she asked for rides and prayed. Then she got a call from Cars 4 Columbia telling her that she was selected to receive a car.

 

“I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ and she said ‘They’re giving you a car,’ and she sent me pictures,” De Leon said. “I was like, ‘Is this for real?’”

 

Anthony Conway, the program director for Cars 4 Columbia, said he got a good idea of transportation needs in Columbia when he was running a cab service. People who have cars might not understand how limiting it can be to lack transportation. For those without a vehicle, public buses often aren’t consistent enough to reliably get to work on time.

 

Cars 4 Columbia is meant as an unconventional solution to help people in unconventional situations who lack transportation, he said.

“If you don’t have a car and you have the capability to buy a car, that’s your responsibility,” Conway said. “But if you found yourself left by your husband who was taking the vehicle and left you with five kids, I wouldn’t consider that conventional.”