History

Mike’s Auto Body’s Benevolence Program is an area community relations program designed to generate good will at the local level with a mission to present refurbished cars to deserving individuals or organizations.

The first year, 2001, Mike’s was proud to present a refurbished car, donated by Mike’s Auto Body, to a single mom with 2 children. The day of the presentation, Wayne Freedman from Channel 7 News came to record the presentation and broadcasted the story on the evening news. The Channel 7 News Team has been a big part of our program since 2001 by helping to kick off the Christmas season and help spread the Christmas Spirit to our community. After our first year, the Benevolence Program took off and has become a Mike’s Auto Body Tradition.

We are very proud of our vendor partners, technicians, Enterprise, Hertz, and insurance partners who have helped Mike’s throughout the years to present refurbished cars to deserving individuals and organizations. Over the last 20 years, we have been able to present 92 cars to single parents, single grandparents, and families in need of reliable transportation. Mike’s started the presentations in 2001-2006 at our Concord location and one year in Brentwood. Then in 2007-2009 we held the presentation at our Pittsburg location. From 2010-2015, we moved the presentations to our new Antioch location and then in 2016 to present, our new ADAC Training Center in Antioch. We opened a new location in Fairfield in 2012. As part of the Travis Air Force Base community, we thought it was appropriate to honor our active and veteran service men and women. We held our first annual Veterans Day Benevolence Presentation on Veterans Day of 2012. The year 2019 was a special year for our new Alameda location. We were honored to be a part of the Alameda Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers Association’s 99th Year Anniversary celebration by presenting a car to a deserving “Coastie” family as part of our Benevolence Program and again the following year for the 100th Year Anniversary and creating a new annual event.

The original Benevolence Program was a Christmas Holiday event, but Mike saw that there was a need for reliable transportation all year long. Mike’s Auto Body continued to grow throughout the years opening new locations and celebrated by having Benevolence Presentations in Napa, Fremont, Alameda, Vallejo, and Pleasanton. 2020 was an unpresented year with the COVID-19 Pandemic turning everyone’s world upside down, but we were still able to hold three presentations in Alameda, Clayton, and Pleasanton, presenting four cars to four deserving families. We are looking forward to continuing the Benevolence program in 2021.

We feel very fortunate to be involved with such a wonderful program and are very excited to be able to give back to the community that has supported us for the past 48 years. Being in this business for that long, repairing the vehicles is the easy part, having to decide on a recipient is the hard part. After receiving hundreds of applications over the years and reading the heart-breaking stories, we only wish that we could do more. But hopefully with increased publicity of our Benevolence Program other shops will adopt a similar program of their own.”

-Mike Rose, President and Founder of Mike’s Auto Body