Heuberger Shares the Love

With 2021 behind us, we’ve been reflecting on some wins in a year of inventory problems, and the realities of living with COIVID in our community. One of the biggest wins had to be finishing the year off with the annual Subaru Share the Love Event.

Though we raised more money in 2020 than 2021 we are still very proud of raising over $45,000 for our hometown charity partner, Victory Service Dogs.

If you aren’t familiar with Share the Love, it works like this: Each year, Subaru dealers sign up for the Share the Love event and select a local charity to focus on. During late November, all of December and early January, Subaru donates $250 on behalf of every new car purchaser to the charity of their choosing. Customers select the hometown charity or a national charity that the donation goes to. Heuberger Motors also makes an additional $50 donation for each car sold during that time to our hometown charity.

We had anticipated lower donation totals this year due to ongoing inventory constraints caused by the global supply chain problems that are well documented in the news. However, Subaru allowed the program to be adapted to this inventory environment this year and credited orders for vehicles to count towards sales for purposes of donation totals. This allowed us to still raise a ton of money for Victory Service Dogs!

Victory Service Dogs is a local charity focused on training suitable dogs and veterans together at no cost to the veteran. Service dogs can fill a wide range of needs for a veteran or first responder suffering from mental and physical trauma related to their military or police service. However, waiting lists for dogs are lengthy and there are never enough dogs to go around. Someone struggling with suicidal ideation or physical impairments can’t afford to wait and they can almost never afford to purchase and train a dog on their own.

Dog and handler teams are trained together at Victory Service Dogs’ location in Colorado Springs for whatever tasks the handler might need the dog to perform. Sometimes this is as simple as just having a battle buddy to watch a their back at the grocery store. Other times it could be turning lights off, picking up fallen objects or just providing stable, intelligent companionship to keep spirits high and prevent someone from feeling as isolated in the community. Often the presence of a service dog can help prevent someone from isolating themselves at home and foregoing time with friends, family or community outings.

Victory Service Dogs has yet to lose a client to suicide since starting their program and if that were the only good they’ve done, it would be well beyond enough. However, donations from last year’s Share the Love program have allowed them to launch a new program called Victory Kids which provides customized service dog training to children on the spectrum, with diabetes, seizure disorders and more. Truly, we couldn’t be more proud of helping Victory Service Dogs to carry out their mission.

Heuberger is also amongst a select few dealers nationwide that have raised over one million dollars for charities in and around Colorado Springs since the Share the Love program started.

These last couple years has made it hard for many of us to find bright spots but truly our continuing participation in Share the Love has provided a very bright star indeed for us to reflect on as we enter 2022. We couldn’t be more satisfied with our role in the community and we certainly wouldn’t be able to do what we do without the support and patronage of our customers. So really, all the credit goes to you. Thank you for trusting us with your business. It does so much more than you may know.