ST. GEORGE —A nonprofit family shelter received a new jungle gym for their facility on Thursday, along with newly renovated apartment floors, provided by a car dealership that used its quarterly budget and employees to complete the project.
Austin Szatlocky, a marketing manager at Ken Garff St. George Ford, told St. George News that partnering with the Dove Center has not only benefited the nonprofit organization but also the dealership’s employees, who donated their time to give back to the community.
As part of their give-back program We’re Hear For You, Ken Garff St. George Ford reached out to the Dove Center to discuss the potential and primary needs of the facility and program. Upon their visit to the safe house, Szatlocky said, they noticed Dove Center’s jungle gym was a metal play place with an old canopy, two swings and a metal slide.
“This is Southern Utah – it’s impossible for the kids to enjoy it in the summer months,” Szatlocky said about the jungle gym. “Even if it was shaded, the heat from the summer temperatures would make it far too hot to go down the slide.”
He said that’s when the Ken Garff St. George Ford team decided to make that their first charity project for the Dove Center and subsequently purchased a jungle gym from the Lifetime store.
They next took a tour of the apartments inside Erin’s House, a home created by the Erin Kimball Foundation, as previously reported by St. George News, that provides transitional housing and services for women and their children who are escaping domestic violence situations and a next-step living facility for those who leave the Dove Center.
“When we walked into the apartments, the smell coming from the carpets was horrendous,” Szatlocky said. “Imagine going from the safe house, trying to get back into life, and this is what you come back to.”
After deciding to replace the carpet with laminate flooring, he said they also decided to designate half of their We’re Hear For You budget to complete both the jungle gym and two apartment floor renovation projects.
“These apartments are a transition piece for those moving out of the shelter and back into the community,” Szatlocky said of Erin’s House. “It’s set up for victims of violence and abuse and is an important part of the Dove Center process, so we felt it would be a great way to help.”
He said these apartments are in a separate location, apart from the Dove Center facility, and volunteers for both projects are employees of the dealership, with seven employees installing the jungle gym and four completing the apartment floor renovations.
Szatlocky shared his appreciation for the local businesses who stepped in to assist with the project, including GS Flooring, Empire Waste Services, Carpets Plus and Osborn Painting. He added that while the dealership planned to pay these companies for their services, many of them wanted to donate their time and resources.
Ken Garff has about $4,000 left from their quarterly charity budget and plans to use the extra money for additional items Dove Center might need, such as a refrigerator or washing machine for the renovated apartments, Szatlocky added.
Past Ken Garff St. George Ford charity projects
Since the COVID-19 pandemic started two years ago, Ken Garff St. George Ford has completed multiple service projects within the community, Szatlocky said.
Among these was the nomination of five families who each received an $800 shopping spree to Ace Hardware, where they could buy what they needed for their home or family. They also each received a $200 gift card to Harmons to purchase food.
Ken Garff also completed a charity project at the Southern Utah Veterans Home in Ivins, where they purchased wheelchair-accessible planter boxes and planted flowers for the veterans to enjoy. Although this project was completed during the pandemic — a time they were unable to meet in person with the seniors — Szatlocky said they enjoyed seeing the smiling faces peeking out the windows to see the freshly-planted flowers.
Ken Garff also completed a charity project for Southwest Behavioral Center during the pandemic, where the stress from COVID-19 resulted in increased emotional and domestic violence cases for the facility to manage.
He said therapists had extremely high caseloads at that time, around 80 per therapist, more than 3 times what a caseload would normally be for therapists at the center. As a way to give back to the workers, Ken Garff purchased a food truck and catered Zeppes for the employees to enjoy.
The dealership also donated eight mountain bikes to the St. George Outdoors program in October of last year, as reported by St. George News.
“We’re here to do We’re Hear For You projects in any way, shape or form to help out with either the ones that do all the hard work or the ones that are really in need, with losses in their family or some type of traumatic experience,” Szatlocky said. “We want to give back because we know that it’s the community that helps us stay in business.”
Szatlocky said that Ken Garff facilitates the We’re Hear For You charity project about once every quarter, with a budget of around $5,000 for each project they take on.
“The idea behind these projects is to get Ken Garff employees out into the community doing volunteer work,” Szatlocky said. “It’s not just us handing over a check, like, ‘Here you go,’ it’s an opportunity for us to actually do service.'”
Markee Pickett, communications director at Dove Center, told St. George News that people such as Szatlocky and local companies stepping in to allow the Dove Center to focus more on their clients instead of other needs, like renovations. She said the center appreciates when businesses ask what they need and said Ken Garff did an excellent job on the renovation and jungle gym.
“We’re just really grateful to companies and businesses in our local area that are willing to help us out with projects like this,” Pickett said. “They really are time-consuming and we can’t necessarily do them on our own all of the time.”
For more information on Dove Center and how to donate, click here. For more information on the We’re Hear For You charity projects from Ken Garff St. George Ford, click here.
Photo Gallery
The old jungle gym outside the DOVE Center hows a metal slide, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Markee Pickett, St. George News
Members of the Ken Garff St. George Ford work on the new jungle gym, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Austin Szatlocky, St. George News
Members of the Ken Garff St. George Ford work on the new jungle gym, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Austin Szatlocky, St. George News
Members of the Ken Garff St. George Ford work on the new jungle gym, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Austin Szatlocky, St. George News
Members of Ken Garff St. George Ford celebrate the completion of the new jungle gym, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Austin Szatlocky, St. George News
The new jungle gym outside the DOVE Center, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Markee Pickett, St. George News
The outside of Erin's house features a stone representing the Erin Kimball Memorial Foundation, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Markee Pickett, St. George News
A 'before' photo shows the old carpet in an apartment at Erin's House, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Austin Szatlocky, St. George News
A 'before' photo shows the old carpet in an apartment at Erin's House, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Austin Szatlocky, St. George News
Russ Eardley and other members of the Ken Garff St. George Ford team work on floor renovations, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Austin Szatlocky, St. George News
Kirk Hafen of Ken Garff St. George Ford works on the floor renovations, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Austin Szatlocky, St. George News
Members of Ken Garff St. George Ford work on the floor renovations, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Austin Szatlocky, St. George News
Members of Ken Garff St. George Ford put in new flooring, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Austin Szatlocky, St. George News
The new renovated laminate flooring sits on the floor of an apartment at Erin's House, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Markee Pickett, St. George News
The new renovated laminate flooring sits on the floor of an apartment at Erin's House, Location and date unspecified | Photo courtesy of Markee Pickett, St. George News
Austin Szatlocky, a marketing manager at Ken Garff St. George Ford, stands in front of the dealership, St. George, Utah, April 20, 2022 | Photo by Jessi Bang, St. George News
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.