Start Your Engines...

Wheels of Success was incorporated in June 2003 to help families obtain or continue work by providing them with reliable transportation through a program of car repairs, vehicle replacement, related licensing services, car payments, down payments and car-care classes in both Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties.

Tampa is the highest cost metropolitan city in the country for transportation costs. Forty percent of the working poor's income is spent on transportation as opposed to 24.6% of the general population's. The bus system is not only inadequate, running infrequently and with very few routes, but it does not run in the evening or on holidays when many hospitality employees work. Parents working until 5:00pm and taking a bus (or busses) to pick up their children from daycare find it almost impossible to get there by the 6:00pm deadline. Read more

Success Story
Paula's Story: Grateful Recipient

Mere words can not express how I felt this morning, knowing that Hannah and I did not have to get up at 6 a.m. and ride the bus to get her to school. Six hours out of my day just to get her to school and picked up is way too much. When I opened my front door and looked out and saw my car, the feeling of relief was overwhelming! For all of this year, we have been riding the bus almost every day. Sometimes we would get a cab because it was raining or just too cold. But now, all that is over thanks to Wheels of Success.

I am a single mom, who has had 7 children, most of whom I have raised by myself. I was 16 years old when I married and had my first child. My husband and I divorced 24 years and 6 kids later. At that time, I got my GED and my CNA certificate and went to work in the nursing home and home health field. A few years later I was blessed with Hannah, although her father and I never married he remains a constant in her life. Having reliable transportation has always been my achilles heel. Up until I got my van at a buy here/pay here, I mostly had old junkers that didn't last very long. Read more