In early October, the Bainbridge Island Senior/Community Center began a partnership with California-based nonprofit CARS, called Cars for a Cool Cause, with donations of vehicles directly supporting the center.

BISCS major gifts officer Todd Girouard described his inspiration for partnering with the organization. He previously worked at Northwest Harvest, a nonprofit dedicated to hunger relief, and found success with establishing a similar program there and wanted to replicate it on Bainbridge Island.

“It’s a great way for passive revenue to generate a revenue stream, and we don’t have to do anything with it. I mean, we promote it and market it and spread the word. CARS, which is in itself a nonprofit, does all the heavy lifting,” he said. “They pick up the vehicles or the boats or the helicopters, running or not. They do the title transfer and all the paperwork, and they write the legal thank you letter, with the tax language that’s on there to the donor.”

Money raised from the donations directly supports the senior center’s general operations, which include things such as class offerings, paying staff salaries, and paying teachers and instructors, Girouard said.

“We’re an intergenerational center too. We have people from all ages. We’re a senior center, yes, but we’re also a community center. So we have Silver Tech, we have kids from local high schools come in to help seniors with high tech and their computers and all that stuff,” he said.

Girouard said the center has almost 2,200 members and is one of the largest nonprofits on the island.

“If somebody’s got a vehicle, maybe it’s not running, and it is kind of a hassle to sell a vehicle on your own. You could always take it as a trade-in to the dealership, but then you’ve got to do all the paperwork and so this is an easy way to kind of get your vehicle taken care of and support a good cause at the same time. So it’s really just a great option for people on a number of fronts,” he said.

Girouard said word of mouth can be an effective marketing tool, adding, “So once people start doing this, then they’ll be able to say, hey, I got rid of my old clunker and I gave it to Bainbridge Island Senior/Community Center, and you might think about doing that too,” he said.

He said the center is in the process of building awareness around the program, adding, “things hopefully will build over time, we’ll have some donations coming in. It doesn’t have to be a ton, but every little bit helps,” he said.

To learn more about the program or senior center offerings, visit biseniorcenter.org/