By Angeline Schwab. Five years ago, Rachel Brock was struggling. She was a patient at the Mary Benson House, an Asheville alcohol and drug treatment program for parenting and pregnant women, where she was raising an infant son.
“I was a single mother then and my son was five months old,” she says. “His Dad passed away and I was determined to build a normal, stable future for my child.”
It was a 12-month program, with seven participants all working together to pursue recovery, and it was a crucial time for Rachel and the baby.
Mary Bensen House offers mothers a chance to further education, obtain employment, and receive counseling and training. They gain parenting and recovery skills, and the organization often connects residents with other community agencies to ensure the entire family’s needs are being met.
That’s where Working Wheels enters the story.
Rachel had lost her license years before and wasn’t sure she would ever get it back, but she knew that she needed transportation to have a job and to get her child to school. She set her sights on obtaining her license and finding a vehicle.
An Asheville nonprofit founded in 2017, Working Wheels provides reliable cars to low-income working families in Western North Carolina. The organization accepts donated cars and spends grant dollars and cash donations to rehabilitate the vehicles with local mechanics. It partners with local nonprofit agencies like Mary Benson House because they offer case management to their clients and can determine whether a person might make good use of a reliable, low-cost car or even a car repair. Mary Benson House staff encouraged Rachel to apply. Working Wheels matched her with a Honda Accord donated by a local family, and the car played an integral role in her recovery and her family’s steady climb to stability. Now in her sixth year of recovery, Rachel owns her own home, has become a grandmother and works as a Peer Support Specialist and Executive Assistant with the Sunrise Community for Recovery and Wellness.
“Transportation is often a missing piece of the puzzle for people working to turn around their lives,” says Jamie Beasley, Executive Director of Working Wheels. “Rachel’s story is exactly what we hope for in our work and the fact that she passed the car on in the same spirit that she received the vehicle is the ideal outcome.”
“Fun fact,” Rachel says, “the car is still working well after five years. I passed it along to my brother-in- law when he went through a bumpy patch!”
“I still go back and talk to the ladies at the Mary Benson House and I let them know there’s hope and resources out there to help.”
Working Wheels provides affordable and reliable transportation options to working families in need in Western North Carolina. Car donations are used to change lives and help clients gain access to transformational opportunities including education, employment, and access to healthcare. For more information on Working Wheels, visit the website workingwheelswnc.org or call (828) 633-6888.