This story comes to us from our good friend David Greenlees at The Old Motor.com. He’s got a message to share with us about a worthy and exciting cause—check it out. 

McPherson College Auto Restoration Program needs the old car community’s help

by David Greenlees

Happy New Year to all. We have chosen this time to start out our fund-raiser to help the McPherson College Automotive Restoration Program. The college needs our help to obtain needed equipment that will help with furthering the education of the students. Follow along and you can learn more about the college and its restoration program.

The Automotive Restoration Technology Program at McPherson College was established in 1976 through the generosity and foresight of local entrepreneur Gaines H. “Smokey” Billue, who provided funds for the construction of Templeton Hall along with additional operating capital through the donation of a portion of his classic and antique car collection—an initial investment of over $2.5 million.

This unique automotive restoration program attracted the attention of enthusiast and TV personality Jay Leno. In 1997, Leno established the Fred J. Duesenberg Scholarship at McPherson College to provide financial assistance for automotive restoration students. One year later, Leno combined forces with Popular Mechanics magazine to provide a full scholarship each year for a sophomore restoration student. You can learn more about it here.

The school is very well equipped, but always has the need for new and additional equipment, and that is what this fund raiser is all about. They need our help to to obtain the following equipment.

Any amount toward any needed item, no matter how small, will be more than welcome. You can also buy any particular tool or piece of equipment and contribute the full amount for it if you prefer. All contributions will go 100% directly to the program and the college has made it it easy for you to do so in two ways. First, the most important thing to do with your donation is to mark it as being for “auto restoration tools and equipment”. You can learn more about making your contribution directly online here. If you prefer to mail in your donationon, you can print this form and send in your contribution directly.

You can learn more about the types of programs the school offers here. You can also learn about enrolling in the program. You can learn other ways to support the students. This link will take you to the program’s very informative newsletter. You can learn more about the program in the news media. And here, you can learn more about others that help them.

Just remember the help we were given by others when we we younger. By helping the students today, they may in turn help us with our own cars down the road. They are the future. Below are two videos to show you more about the program. The first shows the  Model T Ford Rapid Assembly team in action in the automotive restoration building. In the second you can see the school campus during the 13th annual car show.

And a big thank you from us and the college for helping them out if you can.