Augustana’s Car Club hosted a bake sale in the Brew from Dec. 3-5, raising a total of $360 for the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program. The club is hoping to purchase Christmas gifts and wishlist items for at least five Angels.
Car Club aims to bring together car and motorcycle lovers, as well as educate individuals about how to take care of, and even modify, their vehicles.
Doug Tschopp, advisor of Car Club, said that the club was first founded in 2016 by alumni Gabriel Tucker ‘18, with a goal to teach students general car maintenance. However, Tschopp said the pandemic unfortunately wrecked Car Club’s presence on campus until junior Melissa Cook took the wheel last year.
As president, Cook said she has worked to make the campus and the surrounding community more aware of Car Club and its mission since its period of inactivity. After gaining some traction on campus in the last year, Cook said the club has shifted its focus to also encompass the car community at large, holding a car meet at this year’s activity fair.
Cook said the holiday bake sale was one of their first fundraisers of the year, and she hopes to make shopping for Angel Tree an annual club tradition. According to the Salvation Army’s website, donors can shop for families in need online or at their local Walmart.
“You can go straight through Salvation Army and donate money so [Angels] can get gifts, or a lot of places have [Angel Tree] Christmas trees up,” Cook said. “You can take cards [off the trees] for specific kids and buy presents from their wishlists, so we are going to make it a group shopping event.”
Junior Brianna Phorasavong, treasurer of Car Club, said the club was looking to give back to the community through a fundraiser. But they hadn’t settled on an organization until she and Cook were out to eat at Olive Garden when they saw an Angel Tree.
“We were like ‘Oh my God, we should do an Angel Tree,’” Phorasavong said. “Then, we sent out a message to our GroupMe to see if anyone would be interested, and everyone was in agreement.”
Phorasavong said members of the club came together to make homemade cookies, brownies and banana muffins for students to purchase, with prices ranging from $2-6. The club also sold hot chocolate in the Brew for $3.
Cook said the bake sale helped Car Club get its name out to students as well as break down stigmas surrounding the young car scene, concerning racing and “takeover culture”.
Junior Roman Bilanicz, vice president, said takeover culture is known to be a big part of the younger car scene, involving stolen vehicles “taking over” streets and intersections at unsafe speeds. Bilanicz said this can often lead to car and property damage and sometimes even harm to individuals involved, creating a bad wrap for young car lovers and enthusiasts.
“People will do donuts while hanging out of cars, and it’s incredibly dangerous,” Bilanicz said. “That doesn’t have to be what cars are all about.”
Car Club is a part of the Great River Region Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), a local chapter of the nation’s largest motorsport membership organization. In the future, Cook said she hopes to be able to get the campus club involved in collegiate racing.
After tabling in the Brew, Car Club drove over to Buffalo, Iowa, on Friday, Dec. 5, where they sold the rest of their baked goods at Buffalo Boondocks, a local bar and grill.
“Cars can really bring people together, and there’s a lot of power in that,” Bilanicz said. “Our goal is to build a community and to help the Augustana community and the community around us. So whether it’s going out at 11 p.m. because somebody’s car won’t start or doing fundraisers to help the local community, all of that is to bring people together.”
