Time is running out to get yourself a brand new old car and help out your local health care provider at the same time.
A charity auction has been running since the middle of this month for a Nissan Micra that Val Grant has owned and driven since 1987, when she retired from being a teacher. Having decided that it was time to stop driving at the respectable age of 98, she reached out to Marty Kreger of Kreger Auto in Rainy River to help her come up with a way to sell her beloved car.
“I know the family and we always serviced the vehicle for them,” Kreger said.
“She was deciding not to drive and I was talking to her about it. She was looking at selling it and she said ‘I have so many people that want to buy it’ and her and her son were saying they should try to put it out there and see what kind of money someone would give them for it and asked if I would be able to help them out, because she would like to give whatever she could get for it to Riverside Foundation. I said, ‘well, I have an idea, why don’t you give me the weekend to come up with something and I’ll run it by you.’”
Shortly after that, Kreger helped put the car up on its own Facebook page, the “Nissan Micra Charity Auction” and opened the doors to what has become a lively bidding war. All of the money from the sale of Grant’s car will go to the Riverside Foundation for Health Care.
Kreger explained that the car is in excellent condition, with only 138,000 km on the dial.
“It is your basic automatic,” he said.
“No power steering, no power window. It gets around. It’s got three squirrels and one chipmunk under the hood in a cage, and I don’t think it can get over a buck twenty… It’s in phenomenal shape, the interior and exterior. The only problem is the rockers on both sides, other than that it has new tires, all the brakes, lights work 100 percent. It’s just the rockers. It’s just their time.”
Kreger said the rockers would definitely need to be replaced in order for the vehicle to pass a safety inspection.
It’s also a bit on the small side, though that certainly didn’t seem to bother Grant while she owned it. For Kreger, standing at 6’3”, he said the sight of him getting into the car to bring it in for its annual tuneup was quite the thing to behold.
“She used to get a laugh out of it every time we’d go to pick it up in the spring to bring it out and get it ready for her in the summer,” he said.
“I’m a big guy, and she sees me climb in this thing and it goes down the road sideways and she laughs. It’s a great little car. You just don’t see them anymore.”
As for the charity auction part of the equation, the Facebook post for putting in bids has so far seen 48 bids, with the highest bid sitting at $2,100 as of Tuesday night, courtesy of Harold McQuaker Enterprises Ltd., though Kreger said some people have been moved to support the spirit of the auction without bidding.
“We’ve had three donors come through,” he said.
“The Brielmans and Taits, [Brielmann Agriculture Ltd., Tait Bros Contracting Ltd. and North End Farms Ltd.] all three different companies each gave $1,000 in honour of her, which is amazing.”
Additionally, Kreger said the Riverside Foundation itself has come onboard and has since spoken with Grant in order to help her decide where the money from the auction will go.
With the current high bid of $2,100 and little more than half a week left to go in the auction, which is set to close Halloween night at midnight (Oct. 31) Kreger said that he feels there are two reasons the community has rallied behind the auction so enthusiastically.
“Two things: one, it’s an amazing thing to do,” he said.
“She bought the car for herself as a retirement gift. Everybody in the area had her as a teacher. It’s just a really nice thing she’s doing. And everyone appreciates what our health care is doing for us, they’re struggling too. All in all, it’s just a wonderful thing people are pulling together for.”
To keep apprised of the auction’s status, or to put your own bid in on the car, visit the Nissan Micra Charity Auction” Facebook page.
