Allen Turner Hyundai & Chevrolet Give Back To Community

On December 21, 2015, DrivingSales News spoke to Allen Turner, the owner of Allen Turner Chevrolet and Allen Turner Hyundai about his thoughts on dealerships’ charitable giving during the holiday season. Turner spoke about what his store has done and how he feels dealers often come to the rescue in their communities.

DrivingSales News: You said you don’t want this Christmas giving to be about you, what does that mean?

Allen Turner: I did an interview with someone earlier today (regarding our Christmas charitable giving) and she said, “How does that help you sell cars?” I said, “We don’t do that because it helps us sell cars, we do it because it’s the right thing to do.” I think so many times car dealers get beat up and we just have to take those punches over and over because we are car dealers, but at the same time car dealers do a lot for communities around the world. Not just me in my store, but a lot of times there’s a tragedy and car dealers come to the rescue. When kids need a sponsorship, a sign at the ballpark, I mean car dealers are doing that in every town in America. It’s not just something that’s going on at Allen Turner Hyundai, but it’s the right thing to do to give back to the community.”

DrivingSales News: What can you tell us about the Christmas charity program at your stores?

Allen Turner: People want to see that you’re a community partner and that you’re interested in things beside yourself. When I was a kid I had a Christmas club account, and my mom would put $5 a month in so she’d have money at Christmas, we do that all year long. Here at the dealership employees contribute and at the end of the year however much we have the company matches it dollar-for-dollar. So then we take that money and try to find a nonprofit group that’s helping people at Christmas. It’s different at each store.

At our Hyundai store, because we have a large number of employees, the money got up to almost $30,000 one year. It’s hard for us to orchestrate helping people individually so we reached out to a food bank in Pensacola. They gave us the opportunity for our employees to go down and volunteer so you can do down and pack food, or measure food or redistribute it. At our Chevrolet dealership in Crestview, Florida we didn’t find any type of a food kitchen or food pantry that was well-organized, so we reached out to the local police department and they have a program called “Cops for Kids.” Every year they identify families that are struggling or that have certain needs, they go shopping they buy gifts for those families. Actually, the police department called this morning (December 21) to see if we could spare some people to help them do the shopping so some of the ladies from the sales force and others went around and bought items for I think 38 families.

DrivingSales News: What are the challenges associated with putting this type of charity outreach together?

Allen Turner: The more money you get and the bigger the thing goes, the harder time the dealership has in orchestrating all that. To be able to pair together with a food bank or local police department ­– it gives us more power to do the things that we don’t have the human capital to do. It has to be a cooperation between two groups. Worldwide the average person in the world is living on less than $2 per day and so a homeless American is above the “world” poverty level. Were just blessed to have the resources. As a car dealer we’re always pumping up our teams and looking forward and just have a sense of optimism. For Thanksgiving and Christmas to not give back – it just feels wrong. It’s one of those great opportunities to give and to have people in your group, your organization that want to do that also, it just makes you feel good and it’s the right thing to do.

DrivingSales News: How does the giving work at your store in terms of employee contributions?

Allen Turner: It might be $5 per pay period, it might be $20 per month – whatever they want to give and at the end of the year we add all that up and the company matches it. At our Chevy store it was about $6,500 that we gave to through the local police department and at our Hyundai store it was about $23,000 that we gave though the local food bank.”

DrivingSales News: What do you feel dealers add to their communities across the nation?

Allen Turner: Car dealers are always spending while advertising and helping the community that covers both of those phases. Car dealers will come to the rescue if there’s some need. Car dealers are giving people. Car dealers are for the most part good-hearted people, they’re entrepreneurs and they realize when they need to help other people and they come through time after time after time all across America.”

Turner also added that his Hyundai dealership has been involved in Christmas charity work for the past 17 years and that his employees as well as himself have had a tremendous experience volunteering in conjunction with the Christmas charity program.

When you look back on your store this year, how have you managed to give back to your surrounding community in 2015?