We just got some news from Derek over at Standard Auto Wreckers about a great event taking place on Sat. June 11, 2022 at 127 Select Ave. Unit 6 – details below.

CARSTAR is asking you to help support our 8th Annual Soaps It Up for Cystic Fibrosis National Car Wash Fundraiser.

We are trying to break our Guinness World Record for the Largest Car Wash and we need your help to do it! On Saturday, June 11, we want to wash over 5000 cars and raise $125,000! Visit our location to purchase a ticket for $5 and you’ll receive a car wash from our volunteers! The proceeds will go to the fight against cystic fibrosis and to Sick Kids Foundation.

We are holding our event at CARSTAR Scarborough North East, 127 Select Ave, Unit 6,  on Saturday June 11, 2011, Come down between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. to let us soap up your car for cystic fibrosis and Sick Kids Foundation!

Together, we can make cystic fibrosis unhappen.

Great event!  Hope to see you there!

Also please note, if you are not close to this particular car wash event or even if  you are  in a different province, check-out the CARSTAR website for a charity event close to you!

We had a chance to snap a few pictures at the Urban Hero Awards last night in Scarborough.  The Urban Hero Awards is an annual awards program that recognizes those community members and grassroots level ‘heroes’ whose personal efforts, sacrifices or contributions have made a significant impact to a cause, a person or a group in our local community.

Above is our representative (and presenter) David Gold from Standard Auto Wreckers (www.StandardAutoWreckers.com).

This years Tire Take Back Event is quickly approaching and one local auto recycling yard, Standard Auto Wreckers is reving things up in preparation of this amazing charitable event!

Standard Auto Wreckers in Toronto, Ontario in partnership with OARA (Ontario Automotive Recyclers Assosciation) will be participating in the collection of used tires in the greater Toronto area.  All tire fees associated with each tire dropped off will be donated by participating members to The Sunshine Foundation of Canada.  OARA will then match the donation made from all tires collected.

Bring your old tires down to 1216 Sewells Road in Scarborough on May 27 & 28 to help those less fortunate in your community.  If you have any questions or need more details please call Standard Auto Wreckers directly at 416-286-8686 or visit their website to learn more about this charity event.

Good news for Canadian charities today. Federal and provincial governments are signalling that they will make it easier for charities to run businesses and tap into financing normally reserved for corporations, as cash-strapped governments boost their reliance on the private sector.

Ottawa, Ontario and British Columbia have recently indicated they are looking for ways to bolster so-called social financing – essentially, what happens when money is invested to generate both a social and a financial return.

The willingness to explore the co-mingling of business and charity, and ways to use investor capital and capital markets for the social good, comes as governments look to cut expenses with minimal damage, and as charities face a decline in financing.

In its budget on Tuesday, the Ontario government said it will look for opportunities to use social venture financing through partnerships that will save the government money while maintaining or enhancing service levels. It noted that in some cases, social enterprises may be able to deliver services more efficiently and effectively than government, and that they may also be able to offer new products and services that help reduce fiscal pressure on government.

In last week’s federal budget, the Conservatives indicated they want to push forward on the issue (although those plans will hinge on the results of the May election). “All across Canada, citizens, businesses, charities and other groups, such as the Canadian Task Force on Social Finance, are working together to develop innovative ways to address local challenges,” the budget declared. “The government will take steps to complement community efforts by encouraging the development of government/community partnerships …”

This month, Human Resources and Skills Development hosted an event with other federal departments to look at social finance and related issues. Public Safety Canada also held a meeting this month to examine the idea.

Influential voices, including former prime minister Paul Martin, Macquarie Capital Markets Canada chairman Stanley Hartt and a variety of think tanks, are calling for governments to explore social financing.

“The financial reality is that governments … must respond to growing societal problems and the best way forward is to do that in partnership with the community and private sector,” Mr. Hartt said in an e-mail this week. “The old mentality of business making profit, while government funds social services is no longer tenable.”

A new report by the Toronto-based Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation recommends that the federal government change the Income Tax Act so charities and not-for-profit groups have more flexibility to generate money, as they do in the United Kingdom. The report notes that charities and non-profits rely on three core sources of revenue: government financing, philanthropy and earned income, and argues that only the last item offers any prospect for growth in the long term.

The Canadian non-profit sector is one of the largest in the world, with more than 161,000 charities and not-for-profit organizations. It accounts for 7.1 per cent of the national economy, the report notes. The sector is already doing work that might otherwise be done by government, the report said; for example, carrying out more than $3-billion worth of federal programs in 2009.

You just might see some of these donated to charity soon rather than later, as the Indian automaker Tata is to test the European markets for the potential of launching one of its tiny vehicles.

The firm, which famously produces the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car, is reportedly set to unveil a three-door, four-seat vehicle at this week’s Geneva Motor Show, to see how European audiences react to a small Indian-built city car.

Tata has repeatedly said that it is considering bringing the Nano to western markets but has been faced with a slew of problems with the vehicle, along with the task of completing the considerable modifications necessary to bring the safety standards up to European or North American standards while maintaining the low cost.

Last year, it was forced to defend the Nano’s safety after a series of fires affecting the vehicles, offering free upgrades to win back the affection of the Indian market.

Last week, the Nano finished bottom of a customer satisfactions survey from global market research firm TNS Global, with the company saying that “the owners of Tata Nano expect more in terms of design.”

My guess is that the Tata won’t make many in-roads into the UK market just yet.

At charitycar.ca we support charitable giving along with helping to make the earth a greener place.  We would like to send kudos out to OARA for putting together such a great  video on the contribution auto recyclers make to a helping consumers save money while at the same time promoting a green environment.

In feel good news to start off the new year, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have made a special gift to the land of one of their children’s birthplace.

The Jolie-Pitt Foundation has committed $2 million  towards the N/a’an ku sê Mission in Namibia. The Mission aims to conserve the land, cultures and wildlife of the African county and to rescue species threatened by an ever-shrinking habitat.  The charity also works  to improve the lives of the San Bushman community in Namibia through better education, employment, healthcare and improved living conditions.

According a a press release from the Mission, Pitt and Jolie have a close friendship with Rudie and Marlice van Vuuren who are the directors and Founders of N/a’an ku sê. Namibia is also where the celebrity couple chose to deliver their daughter, Shiloh.

“We have known Rudie and Marlice for many years and continue to be impressed by their hard work and dedication to the people and conservation of the land and wildlife of Namibia,” Jolie said according to the release. “The new section of the project will be under N/a’an ku sê and in Shiloh’s name.  We want her to be very involved and grow up with the understanding of her country of birth.”

The Jolie-Pitt family spent Christmas at the N/a’an ku sê where they engaged in several activities including visiting the San Bushman School on the farm and witnessing the release of a leopard back into the wild.  I love seeing rich celebs giving back to the world!

But fret not,  they won’t be gone for good!  Just long enough for The Digital Life Sacrifice’s internet campaign to raise a million bucks!  K im Kardashian has posed dead in a coffin for a new advert promoting The Digital Life Sacrifice, an internet campaign in which stars including Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Usher will quit social networking sites to raise money for charity.

As a part of the campaign a host of celebrities will log off social networking sites and not sign back in until 1 million dollars has been raised, reports the Daily Mail.  It is being organised by Alicia Keys’ Keep A Child Alive charity for World AIDS Day on Tuesday. Jennifer Hudson, Ryan Seacrest, Elijah Wood, Serena Williams and Swizz Beatz are also taking part.  I love unique campaigns like this and wish them well and am sure they will hit the one million mark quickly!!

Everyone would like to believe that doing charity work is a purely unselfish state of mind but then we see news like this. The Oshawa Hospital Foundation’s chief executive officer is using his own company to run fundraising events for the foundation, including lotteries and gala concerts.

The Toronto Star uncovered this highly unusual arrangement as part of an ongoing investigation into charity in Canada.

Jim Szeman, the supercharged, quick-talking boss of the foundation, said his company Uncommon Results — registered in British Columbia but doing work in Oshawa — provides great service for the foundation he runs. No competitive process was used to hire his company.

read the full story here

Great news for all us generous Canadians,  the “World Giving Index”, the largest study ever carried out into charitable behaviour across the globe, which ranked the UK the eighth most charitable nation in the world, has found that happier people are more likely to give money to charity than those who are wealthy.

The “World Giving Index” used a Gallup survey on the charitable behaviour of people in 153 countries representing 95% of the world’s population. The survey asked people whether they had given money to charity in the last month and to rank how happy they are with life on a scale of one to ten. For all countries CAF compared the strength of the relationship between giving with both a nation’s GDP and the happiness of its population. CAF found that the link between happiness and giving is stronger than the link between wealth and giving.

The study also measured two other types of charitable behaviour alongside giving money – volunteering time and helping a stranger. The “World Giving Index” combines the levels of each charitable behaviour to produce a ranking of the most charitable nations in the world. We scored third overall and that is very amazing!!