A mammoth undertaking

Ten years ago, shortly after Christopher died, I was having coffee in Waitrose, idly flicking through the free newspaper in the coffee shop. I came across an article about a recently launched “social enterprise” / not-for-profit company which promised to take old unwanted cars of your hands, regardless of condition. They would realise the value from the car, either through selling it or scrapping it through an authorised breakers yard, and give all the profit to a charity of your choice. I had both Christopher’s Mini and my 15 year old Polo on my drive at that point, and I didn’t need them both.

This seemed like an ideal way to dispose of my old Polo, and I duly donated it via giveacar.co.uk to St Richard’s Hospice, which had done such a good job in caring for Christopher. I was the first person who had donated a car to St Richard’s, and I remember having to look up their Charity Number to provide to giveacar. The hospice clearly thought it was an excellent idea, it got written up in the local press, and they have incorporated it into their regular fundraising publicity. Until very recently a total of nineteen cars had been donated to St Richard’s, raising many thousands of pounds.

Make that twenty cars. After I had picked up my late mother’s car from a windswept station car park the other month, I was in the same situation as I was after Christopher died – with too many cars on my drive, one of which was very old and costing me money to keep roadworthy. I needed to dispose of my trusty but now 17 year old Mini.

I looked up giveacar, and they were still going strong, but with a rather slicker website than ten years ago. I filled in an online form on a Sunday, they phoned me the next day to discuss, and the car was picked up on the Thursday of the same week. It had a current MOT and a full service history, and still drove very well – provided you didn’t want to open the passenger window at any point! I’ve just heard that it was auctioned and raised nearly £350 for the Hospice.

I have to say it all worked seamlessly. I got an old but still viable car taken off my hands with absolutely no fuss. Someone has bought a good little runner with a very low mileage and only mildly dodgy electrics. And a charity I care about has got a bigger donation than I was expecting. Overall, it’s a win-win-win. I would thoroughly recommend them to anyone who needs to dispose of an unwanted car.