About Us

For millions of Americans, the availability of public transportation is the determining factor in their ability to access jobs and any care they require. For a lot of those people, they either live outside the range of public transit or the places they need to go to are outside of public transit zones, forcing them to miss those opportunities. Forcing them to have to walk for miles to get where they need to be. Since 1996, we have been addressing that need.

Founder Terry Franz and Mike Van Noy owned Car Biz, a used car lot in Kansas City, Missouri. That year, there had been a lot of people looking to purchase a car to only be turned down by credit companies because they were out of work due to medical emergencies, family issues or other circumstances in life. That year around Christmas time, Terry and Mike gave away 6 cars to families that in the past had been denied. A few years later, Terry got out of Car Biz and started Cars 4 Christmas full time, earning him the nickname “Car Santa.” As time would go on, he saw the need in Kansas City increasing more and more and that is where Cars 4 Heroes came from. Now, Car Santa gives away over 300 cars a year just in the Kansas City metro alone.

There are other charities that sound very similar to ours, but we are different in one major way. The cars that get donated are given back to. We do not have cars donated, sell them and then buy other cars to give away or just give people money to buy a car, we give away what gets donated. Now, not every car donated is road worthy or may need major repairs and those cars are sold to help fix up other cars.

The Team that Makes it Happen

Terry Franz | Founder & Chairman

Alex Staton | Director of Marketing

Brian Chistensen | Director of Operations, Kansas

Galen Hassler | Director of Operations, Missouri

Mandy Horvath | Board member and National Selection Director

Jimmy Barry | Director of Operations, Florida

Roger Upchurch | Director of Operations, Indiana

Andrea Cekovsky | Director of Events & Marketing

Board Members

Travis Marvin

Jillian Gregg