A restaurant owner and mechanic from McClellanville, South Carolina has gifted more than 60 vehicles to families in need.
Eliot Middleton first gained national attention when CBS and CNN covered his charitable acts in June. At the time, he had given away more than two dozen used cars that he personally repaired to those in his community who needed a vehicle.
Public transportation options are scarce in the small, rural town.
“You don’t have a car; you don’t have a career. How will people who have no reliable buses, no Ubers, travel to the city, where they would be able to find bigger jobs at the port authorities or manufacturing centers?” Eliot told CNN. “They can’t walk 40, 50, 60 miles to great jobs— they have to settle for small-end jobs that pay well below what they need to survive.”
After the news report went live, viewers donated their used cars, enabling him to ramp up his efforts. Nearly 800 cars had been donated.
The 38-year-old philanthropist learned how to fix cars from his father, Kevin Wayne Middleton Sr. They worked on cars together nor nearly two decades, even setting up their own mechanic shop. His father sadly passed in February 2020. Middleton said that it’s his way of healing.
“I like working on cars with a lot of problems because that’s my time to relate to my father, speak with him, because that’s what we’ve always done together,” he said. “It makes me feel like he’s right there. It’s helping me as much as it’s helping the people, I give the cars to because this is allowing me to cope with the fact that my dad’s not here anymore.”
Middleton says his donations mean more to his community than just a free ride.
“They now know that there’s somebody in the community that was looking out for them and cared for them to be able to carry on,” Middleton said. Over the holidays, Middleton gave away 12 cars for the 12 days of Christmas.
“You have no idea how much this means to me,” Aziare Green, a single mother and one of Middleton’s gift recipients, said. Green was gifted a 2006 Honda Civic. “I am always having to wait and borrow people’s cars,” Green said.
