On Sundays I pay tribute to individual who go the extra mile to help others. Elliot Middleton is such an individual.
Most of the following is from an article from Red State.
Here is the background.
Middleton’s father, Kevin Wayne Middleton Sr., was a gifted mechanic who taught Middleton everything he knew about automobiles and how to repair them. In 2004, the father and son started their own mechanic business and ran it together for 10 years. In 2014, Middleton decided to start a food truck, which was the genesis of Middleton’s Village BBQ in
Along with converting the restaurant into a drive-thru and pickup to keep his fledgling business alive during the pandemic closures, Middleton began fixing and restoring cars, not just as therapy, but as a way to maintain a connection to his father.
Middleton said the idea to gift vehicles to people in need came to him in November 2019, when he organized a food drive to distribute 250 boxes of his barbeque.
When he ran out of boxes, he walked outside to see how many people were still waiting for food and saw a line two blocks long.
“That’s when I noticed most of those people just started walking back to the other side of town,” he said. “I caught up with some of them and found out they had walked three or four miles to get there to receive food, but couldn’t make it in time because they had no cars and they had to walk. I was very distraught to see that.”
“That was the turning point in my life when I made the decision to actively give my time and skills to give back to my community.”
For years now in his spare time, Middleton, the owner of Middleton’s Village BBQ in rural Awendaw, South Carolina, fixes up donated junkers to gift them to community members in need. Public transportation options are meager in the small coastal town, so having a car is essential.
“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.”
“Giving someone a car can change all that, and it does change all that,” he added. “I want to help everybody looking to better themselves when transportation is what’s holding them back.”
The above articles were written years ago. Since then Middleton is still going strong with his restaurant and his charitable mission. Thanks to these articles and other news outlets covering his generosity, Middleton’s barbecue business has been booming with customers, and people from around the nation and the world have reached out to donate vehicles or provide other resources to Middleton’s work. Middleton and his wife Desiree created the Middleton Village to Village Foundation to handle the donations and their recipients. As of late August, Village to Village has restored and given away its 98th car!
9/10/23