'Life-changing': California dad who biked 16 miles roundtrip to work surprised with car

Isaac Taylor's daily commute just got a lot shorter and is life a little bit easier.

Thanks to a program that gives cars to people in need, the 44-year-old California father of six will no longer have to bike 16 miles roundtrip to and from work.

The National Auto Body Council's Recycled Rides program gave Taylor a 2019 Hyundai Elantra last week.

"I cried like a baby," Taylor told KOVR-TV.

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'Role model'

Family Promise of Sacramento nominated Taylor to the Recycled Rides program in April, Marsha Spell, who directs the nonprofit and has known Taylor for 14 years, told USA TODAY on Wednesday.

The nonprofit began helping Taylor as part of its program to help the unhoused. Participants stay in tiny homes and staffers look at their budget, credit and other factors to figure out how to get them back on their feet.

The program typically lasts about three months but Taylor had four kids at the time.

“He took a little bit longer trying to work with four kids to get childcare,” she said. “He did everything he was supposed to do. He worked his budget. He saved 70% of his income after his expenses and was really a role model candidate for our program.”

Since then Taylor has gotten his own apartment in Sacramento and had two more kids. He was driving an SUV that he depended on before someone ran a red light and totaled it, Spell said.

Living without a car 'was very tough'

Following the accident, Family Promise of Sacramento gave Taylor a bicycle to get to his job as a security guard.

Though he had a new mode of transportation, things were significantly harder for Taylor, who has six children between 3 and 19 years old and cares for his two youngest fulltime.

“He was working the night shift, which is so dangerous to be out on the road on a bicycle at night,” Spell said. “I just didn't want to see him get hurt out there and leave those children without a dad.”

Taylor would ride his bike 8 miles to work and 8 miles back home after his shift ended. Then he would walk his children to school, he told KOVR-TV.

“It was early in the morning after working a full graveyard shift, 10-hour shift. It was very tough,” he said.

If the family needed groceries or he had to run other errands, he also had to use the bike.

Until last week

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A life-changing gift

Taylor's new car was donated by Travelers Insurance, and Caliber Collision in Roseville volunteered to restore it.

He told KOVR-TV that he “cried like a baby” when he got his new vehicle.

“How could I feel like I deserve it?" he told the station. "Knowing there are people that go through worse situations than I am in, how did I become so fortunate?”

Taylor already had a promotion to the day shift in the works and the car is making things a lot easier for him, Spell said. "It has been life-changing."

How does the ‘Recycled Rides’ program work?

The Recycled Rides program began in 2007 and has provided people in need with more than 3,000 cars, according to its website.

They typically give out about more than 300 vehicles a year, said Debby Robinson, executive director of the National Auto Body Council.

Charities nominate people to receive vehicles from the program, insurance and rental car companies donate vehicles to the National Auto Body Council, repair companies fix up them up, and then they are given to families in need.

“Many are theft recovery or a salvage title that have minimal damage and meet our quality control standards,” Robinson said.

The charities that nominate recipients like Taylor make sure they are ready to handle the maintenance and insurance costs.

Many of the families the program helps are just starting new jobs and transportation is key in those situations, Robinson said.

“We want partners and recipients who are looking for a hand up, not just a handout,” she said, adding that 75% of the program’s vehicles go to veterans and military members.

“The other 25% go to single parents in need, mothers escaping domestic abuse situations, sometimes … families that have come from a political background where their lives were in danger and escaped to the U.S. with nothing at all,” Robinson said.

Helping Taylor restore ‘normalcy’

It was beautiful to see Taylor and his daughter Genesis' excitement the day they got the car, said Greg Heppler, vice president for Caliber Collision, which did the restoration work for free.

It was rewarding “just watching him and his face and his young daughter dancing around when she saw the vehicle, and knowing that you've been able to restore his life back to some type of normalcy," Heppler said.

He said he told Taylor: “Your life will change and you are deserving of everything that comes your way.”

Jack Edwards, who also works at Caliber Collision, said it was “truly an honor to watch him feel what was happening” that day.

“His children were going to be put in a better place because of the gracious donation of that vehicle from Travelers, the work that had been done by the team here and by the NABC,” Edwards said. “But more importantly … it's a great opportunity for us to remember why we do what we do.”

'Living the dream'

Nicholas Seminara, chief claim officer at Travelers Insurance, said the Recycled Rides program has helped people start working again and get to critical medical appointments.

“When we donate a vehicle, we're not just impacting that one recipient,” he said. “It's their family, it's their friends, it's their employer.

Taylor told KOVR that he's at peace.

“It’s amazing,” he told the station. “I’m living the dream right now. This is my best life.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: California dad who biked 16 miles for work surprised with car gift