ASHLAND — Bill Harris Auto dealership gave more than a new car away to a family in need. They gave the Spotts family a breath. 

Bill Harris Auto held its second Keys 4 Needs car event in which the dealership gives a new car away to a family in need.

On Friday, Scott Harris, the general manager of Bill Harris Auto, handed over the keys to a 2017 Dodge Caravan.

“We’ve had to drive to (the) Cleveland (Clinic),” said Seth Spotts.

Seth, who has served with the United States Army/ National Guard since November 2008 including tours in Afghanistan, was sent home when he was diagnosed with Leukemia. 

“It was two, three, four times a week we had to go back and forth up to Cleveland. That hurt a lot. It’s just time (we needed a new car),” he said.

With the family car beyond its last leg, the Spotts were often forced to rent and borrow cars to get Seth to Cleveland. Seth’s wife said the used family car they have owned since 2008 has been nothing short of a frustration which left them between a “rock and a hard place.”

“We’ve been kind of put in a hard spot where our main priority was to save his life,” Veronica Spotts said of her husband. “We couldn’t worry about the money.

“It’s going to be so nice having a reliable vehicle. At the beginning of the year I had a gas leak in my vehicle and little things like headlights going out, connectors being blown and breaks and rotors, you name it. Seth has always been my mechanic, and for the last year and half, he hasn’t been able to work on it. To be able to safely get him from his appointments means a whole lot.”

Harris said he decided to start the Keys 4Needs program after praying.

“It was pressed on me from Jesus. We hear from so many families who are suffering. They don’t want to be given anything. They just wanted help,” Harris said.

Harris said he heard things such as families having difficulty making it to work, or not signing their children up for extracurricular activities because of a lack of reliable transportation.

“Jesus wants all of us to have the sense we are valued, you know?” he said. “I talked to these people, and it was clear they didn’t have that. 

“I kept praying and I kept hearing, ‘Give away a car.'”

After talking things over with his leadership team at his dealership, he decided to give away a new car to families. 

He used his company’s Facebook page to find families by having the public nominate ones who need help with in Ashland, Richland and Wayne counties.

After nominations comes voting from the community, he said.

“This thing goes everywhere,” he said. “There are thousands of families in this predicament.”

The top five vote getters were asked to come into the dealership for an interview.The final family is selected by Bill Harris Auto.

The four families who were not selected are able to be nominated again in 2018, Harris said.

“Bill Harris has been phenomenal,” Veronica said. “We were in Keys 4 Needs last year, and even though we didn’t win last year, it went to an incredible, amazing family. Bill Harris continues to go out and do amazing things for this community.”