This restaurant owner turned mechanic is fixing up cars for those in need

When Eliot Middleton held a food drive in his rural South Carolina community, he noticed that some individuals didn't make it in time after walking miles to get there. He created a non-profit where he fixes donated junk cars and gives them to people throughout the area in need where public transportation is sparse. "It's the best feeling in the world, nothing surpasses it."

Video transcript

ELIOT MIDDLETON: That one person is always on the side of the road trying to thumb a ride to get to work. They're trying to improve their life. That's what inspired me to be like, OK, I can help that person. I can get a car, I can fix it up, and I can go and meet them while they're thumbing a ride, and be like, "Hey, I'm gone. Here's your car." It's the best feeling in the world, nothing surpasses it.

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My name is Eliot Middleton and I am from McClellanville, South Carolina. It's a small knit community where everybody looks out for everybody. The name of my restaurant is Middleton & Maker Village Barbecue. And some of my supporters are like, "Hey, you know, this town, Andrews, has this cook off." So I entered this cook off, I come in first place. I was like, I want to donate half of my winnings back to this town as a food drive.

250 boxes that we had to distribute to families. And once we got to the end of that, we noticed that there were folks still outside. A lot of folks outside. Some folks didn't make it in the line early enough because they didn't have vehicles. They were walking three or four miles just to get to the food drive.

Anybody that's not near any type of public transportation or anything like that, the closest thing is either a small gas station or a Dollar General. That's 15, 20 miles away. Walking to one of those facilities to get anything is pretty much a half a day task. You're never going to have a chance or opportunity to make more than minimum wage because you don't have a car. A car changes all of that. We're a community where we're big on making sure that the next person has what they need to have to survive.

My dad was a mechanic. Since I can walk or crawl, I've been in the shop. I was like, you know something? I can fix up some cars, and bring it down here, and just donate it to some folks. It started from that. And right back to Facebook with a social media post, and ask them, "Hey, if anybody have a car that's just sitting in your yard." The folks would bring the cars and I would just swap them out for some barbecue ribs.

Our first car that was donated, we were able to repair it, and get it to a young lady who was needing help and assistance on getting her disabled child back and forth to the hospital. That young lady was so blown away. Don't have to walk in the rain to get back and forth to the hospital. It just gave me a feeling to want to get that same feeling over and over and over again.

Our father passed last year. I got pretty much everything that I'm doing for my community from the activity of my dad. As someone came in, and they didn't have all of the money for a repair, he would tell them, "Hey, just pay it every so often on your paychecks." That was something that he probably couldn't afford to do, but he did it anyway because of his heart. Working on a car, it just helps. If I run into a problem, I'm automatically thinking, what would he tell me? It helps me cope with the fact that he's not here. I know he would enjoy it and he would definitely be a part of it.

After turning it into an official non-profit organization, we started receiving more phone calls and more emails, more donations. We had over 800 cars.

We're going to be going to get some vehicles out of Charleston later on this afternoon. Test driven, and making sure that whoever gets these vehicles, they're going to be running great for them.

It just gave me more energy. I have an opportunity to have 800 cars to give 800 feelings out. Once we can find that one person who is trying to better themselves, trying to continue going to work, and trying to take care of the kids and everything, we're going to bless them, and we bless them with transportation.

Just knowing that the organization is responsible for that, that's fuel every morning to get up. I'm like, hey, I got to get something done because I just need to have that one person a little bit more enjoyable of their life. Cars is doing it.

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