Shift Garage combines car repair and ministry to help those in need

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – Joseph Smith combined ministry with car repair 14 years ago when he opened Shift Garage in Rapid City. He opened a second location for Shift Garage in Sioux Falls three years ago. It’s a free-labor garage staffed by Smith and a crew of volunteers.

“I’m a car guy. It’s in my blood, and I want to help people. That’s why I became a pastor,” said Joseph Smith, Director and Founder of Shift Garage.

The mission of Shift Garage is to serve those who might not be able to take on the rising costs at the next car repair shop.

“So now, post-COVID labor rates are around $150 an hour, sometimes it costs $200 just to plug in your car to find out what’s wrong with it at a shop just to get a diagnosis. The clients we serve just can’t afford that and so, we bring them in, we diagnose the car and then we give them an estimate. We just charge for the cost of parts. We don’t mark up the cost of parts, and because it’s volunteer labor, we don’t charge anything for labor. So, we turn a $1200 bill into a $250, $300 bill,” said Smith.

Smith believes that not having a vehicle can hurt a lot of people financially.

“What I love about Shift is that it empowers people in their own vehicle, and that’s the only way I believe to have true freedom. Yes, the bus system goes and you can go to Walmart when they say you can, but you have a car. You work an odd schedule, a lot of our folks, to get to a job and make ends meet. They work at two in the morning and the bus is certainly not out and Lyft and Uber, they’re trying to make money and that’s what the point of the company is, they jack up the prices for a ride at 2:00 in the morning. You work up at Amazon at two in the morning, you’re going to pay a lot for that ride, and you’re going to work a couple of hours and all you’re going to do is pay for that ride,” said Smith.

When a vehicle is beyond repair, Smith helps with that as well with his used car business called Up Shift.

“We are offering cars on our lot at 85% of market value. Car values are weird, that could be higher than book value, but for what they’re actually selling for we’re offering them at 85% of that. Then, we’re partnered with actual lending institutions that get them financing. We don’t do it in-house, actual lending institutions do the financing, but reasonable terms, reasonable interest rate. There’s education throughout that process too. So, instead of hiding the interest rate and instead of talking about the monthly payment, we’re showing the monthly payment. We’re showing the interest rate, explaining what it means and how it affects you and educating on it so that they know what they’re getting from us. Years from now when they need to replace this car, they’re not getting taken advantage of by the next place and they’re an educated buyer. They know what all of this means the next time they need to buy a car,” said Smith.

The people he helps at Shift Garage are also welcome to become volunteer mechanics.

“Somebody that just started here a few weeks ago, her mom got help from us and she said ‘I don’t want to be in this spot. I want to know how my car works,’ and so she’s been serving right alongside us just to see, how does a brake system work? Can I do brake pads? I think I can handle that and now, we’re teaching her just so she knows how to handle that in the future,” said Smith.

For Smith, it’s all about empowering people in their own vehicle.

“Starting Shift, working at Shift obviously has been the most fulfilling thing in my life. When you’ve got a single mom, her car breaks down and she has no idea what is under the hood of a car, she just knows she doesn’t have any money to fix it, what’s she going to do? And she hears about us, we get her in here to fix the car and you hand her the keys back. There’s no feeling like that. It’s incredible and people who serve here get to share in that, and yeah, it’s an incredible feeling,” said Smith.

To learn more about Shift Garage visit: https://shiftgarage.org/

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