Two Ways to Change a Life: Donate Your Car, Give Your Time

At Automotive Mentoring Group, every restored classic car tells two stories. There's the story of the car itself, brought back from rust and neglect to something road-worthy and beautiful again. And there's the story of the young person who rebuilt it, learning patience, discipline, and a real trade one bolt at a time.

Since 2007, AMG has helped more than 300 young men and women turn their lives around through automotive restoration. Nearly all of them come from some of Chicago's toughest circumstances. What they leave with isn't just a skill. It's a high school diploma, a college enrollment, a job offer, or an apprenticeship in an industry that's actively looking for people just like them.

None of it happens without two things: cars to work on, and people willing to show up.

Donate Your Car, Fuel a Restoration

That old car sitting in your driveway or garage, running or not, still has a job to do.

When you donate a vehicle to AMG, it becomes a hands-on classroom. Our mentees learn everything from bodywork and interior restoration to light mechanical repair, working under mentors who range from schoolteachers to police officers, firefighters, and experienced tradespeople. Major engine work goes to trusted outside shops, but nearly everything else, the sanding, the sheet metal shaping, the painstaking detail work that turns a wreck into a showpiece, happens by our mentees' hands.

Donating is simple:

We accept vehicles in any condition: running, not running, old, damaged, or simply no longer needed

We offer free pickup throughout the Chicagoland area

Your donation directly supports a program with an 85% success rate keeping young people out of gangs and out of the justice system

Your car doesn't just get a second life. It becomes the reason someone else gets one too.

Give Your Time

Not everyone has a car to give, but almost everyone has an afternoon.

Volunteers are the quiet backbone of AMG's shop. Some come to help prep the space for a new group of mentees: organizing parts, cleaning the shop floor, making the space feel like somewhere worth showing up to every day. Others bring a specific skill, whether that's mechanical know-how, mentorship experience, or simply the willingness to stand next to a young person and show them how a job gets done right.

Every hour volunteered is an hour a mentor doesn't have to carry alone. If you've ever wanted to be part of the moment a teenager holds a wrench with real purpose for the first time, this is it.

Why It Matters

"The only way you change the behavior of a person is if you change the way they think." That's how our founder, Alex Levesque, describes the philosophy behind AMG. It's not about fixing cars for the sake of it. It's about giving people who've been written off by everyone else a place where someone believes they're worth the investment.

Every donated car and every volunteer hour goes straight into that belief.

Ready to Help?

Whether you have a car gathering dust or a few hours to give, there's a place for you at AMG.

Donate a vehicle or sign up to volunteer by visiting amgmentoring.org or reaching out directly. Your car, or your time, could be exactly what someone needs to change the direction of their life.