By Erik Potter, Post-Tribune staff writer
Car dealerships across the country will be closing their doors this year and next, leaving behind holes in the communities they served.
The local dealership has been a staple of American towns and cities, and their involvement in the local community has been one of the things local charities and civic groups can count on.
"They've been providing charity to people the entire time -- they are literally an institution," said Mike Adams, president of the Hobart Chamber of Commerce in reference to Isakson Motor Sales, a Hobart establishment since 1928.
Isakson employs 22 people at the Chrysler and Dodge dealership. It is one of 20 Chrysler dealerships in Indiana, along with Southlake Dodge in Hobart and Thomas Auto Group in Highland, selected by Chrysler to lose their Chrysler, Dodge or Jeep dealership license.
General Motors announced last week plans to phase out 40 percent of its dealerships, and had already announced last month that more than 1,000 dealerships would not have their licenses renewed at the end of 2010, but it has not yet made that list public.
"They're the perfect dealership for a town our size," said Lowell Town Council President Phil Kuiper about the Smith Ford dealership on East Commercial Avenue in Lowell. There also is a Smith Chevrolet dealership on the west end of town. Although the names of the businesses have changed over the years, the dealerships -- and their commitment to the community -- has remained.
"To lose those two dealerships would just put two huge holes in our town," Kuiper said.
The Smith Ford dealership sponsors the annual Chamber of Commerce Duck Race, helps out the local Veterans of Foreign Wars and provided the lead car for last year's Labor Day parade, among other things.
One team of girls entering their freshman year of high school is counting on Smith to help get them to a national basketball tournament.
The girls have been playing together since fifth grade and compete every summer in as many tournaments as they can get to. Last summer they qualified for the United States Specialty Sports Association's invitation-only national championship tournament in Orlando, Fla., but weren't able to make the trip. This year, by winning the state championship in April, they qualified for the tournament again. The girls' parents promised them they'd find a way to get them to three-day event, this time in Tampa, Fla. They did some car wash fund-raisers last fall at Smith, and looked to them again this spring.
"It's great. When I went there (last fall), I had my car packed with buckets and soap to wash the cars," said Sherri Witvliet, the team's fund-raising organizer and mother of one of the team's 11 players. But rather than just permission to use their water and parking lot, Smith let them use their equipment, too -- their soap, power washer, everything. "'Anything you need,' (they) said, 'Just ask and we'll provide.' "
Without the cooperation of local business "we wouldn't be able to do what we do," said the team's coach Doug Godbolt. "This is stuff (these girls) will remember for the rest of their lives. If you can keep one kid out of trouble and in the gym" you've done your job.
In Hobart, civic organizations across the spectrum benefited from the generosity of the city's new-car dealers.
"They've always said, 'What do you need?' Mike Adams said. They provide signs for organizations that ask for them, funding for after-hours Chamber events, sponsor the symphony, supports the local food pantry and a local church ministry that assists unwed mothers.
Take away the city's new-car dealers, Adams said, and he estimated that charitable giving in Hobart would fall 10 percent to 15 percent.
Linda Buzinec, a former mayor of Hobart, is also involved in the local Kiwanis activities
She's been gathering signatures for a petition to save the business' Dodge and Chrysler dealership status, and the community support has been unflinching.
The dealership is part of a class-action lawsuit to keep Chrysler from rescinding its dealership license. The company wants to remove its dealership status by Tuesday.
"Eighty-one years, there ought to be something to show for it other than, 'We don't want you,'" said Rob Isakson, vice president of Isakson Motor Sales.