Matt Carlson and Jeremy Jensen (at right) present the keys to a 2003 GMC Envoy to Kandy Jenkins of Community Options and two colleagues, Craig Aldrich and Lindsay Bullis. (Photo/Russ Hanson)

Posters and PR billed it as the 300th car giveaway by Fix It Forward Ministry. But when president Matt Carlson turned over the keys to a good-as-new vehicle at Cruise Night Thursday, he explained that the 2003 GMC Envoy was only the 296th car destined to make a difference in a deserving recipient’s life.

“We actually have reached the 300 mark. Four more are ready to go,” he said after presenting them to the recipient’s case manager at a local nonprofit. (The car, displayed on the back of a flatbed, was driven to her home later.) “But with the paperwork and all, we couldn’t give them away fast enough.”

Fix It Forward, a faith-based charitable organization, dates back to 2015, when Carlson and fellow software developer Jeremy Jensen, both at Microsoft, came up with the idea of repairing vehicles for the victims of domestic violence aided by the YWCA and Rape and Abuse Crisis Center. “Transportation is the number one obstacle standing between a woman and independence,” Matt says, quoting professionals he’s come to know at the YWCA Women’s Shelter. “Child care is number two, but there are programs to help with that. Not so, for transportation.”

Later, as the fledgling nonprofit’s record of getting cars up and running reached into the hundreds, supporters began approaching them – says Jensen, now vice president – to donate cars to the cause, usually older models with little trade-in value. The organization’s volunteer mechanics check them out and make any necessary repairs before presenting them to clients of some 40 nonprofits that screen and recommend recipients. The work is done in the retail auto repair shop that operates alongside the charity at 2620 Second Ave. N.