This Huge Car Company Gives To Kids and Communities, From Car Seats to Cancer Research
I was invited to see how Hyundai Hope and Genesis Gives events directly give back to the Houston, Texas community—all in the name of children’s safety.
When a major car company sets out to improve the communities where it lives and works, they have our attention. But when a company like Hyundai, and its luxury arm Genesis, deliver more $277 Million in donations to hospitals and schools across the nation, well, that makes us downright misty-eyed. That’s a lot of kids and families who benefit directly, and not in a simple a write-a-check way.
We’ve covered Hyundai Hope on Wheels and Genesis Gives events for years, watching as they build out programs that support community organizations and genuinely improve the community, from Southern California to New York and everywhere in between in partnership with hospitals, communities and their dealerships.
We followed the Hyundai and Genesis team through Houston as they made personal connections, offered donations, held learning events and staged child car seat checks. It was exhausting, but inspiring.
This story is 100% human-researched and written based on actual first-person knowledge, extensive experience, and expertise on the subject of cars and trucks. I was a guest of Hyundai and Genesis for this experience, but all impressions and opinions are my own.
Hyundai Hope And Genesis Gives: A Mission To Give Back
Hyundai Motor Group describes both sides of the coin as “corporate social responsibility initiatives,” which aim to promote the “progress of humanity.” By both brands funding certain organizations, or donating to certain schools and programs, both companies are helping uplift, educate, and, on the PR end of things, help humanize a large, global automaker.
Hyundai’s strategy is to set up networks across the country to work with children’s hospitals and communities that can benefit from STEAM, or science, technology, engineering, art and math programs for kids. Houston, Texas, home of the Texas Children’s Hospital, was the most recent focus of the Hyundai giving tour, along with the local Boys and Girls club where families were invited to learn how to install car seats properly, and even get a new one if they needed it..
The Biggest Impact: Children’s Cancer Research, But That’s Just the Start
The company has been on the forefront of donating to children’s cancer research, which receives the bulk of Hyundai Hope on Wheels funding totaling more than $277 million since 1998 , but other programs are designed to help kids develop creative and technical skills, from elementary to high school, especially in underrepresented areas.
Both Hyundai and Genesis have helped to help keep dance schools afloat, promote young mathletes, encourage kids to explore robotics or engineering, and has even established career pipelines for schools near manufacturing or corporate sites.
Along with donations to the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Hyundai also held events at the local Boys and Girls Club, inviting kids to visualize car concepts, from amphibious to electric, and then build them from recycled materials, showing them how their ideas can become a reality.
Welcome to Houston, Y’all!
The first stop was the Genesis’s Inspiration Foundation, which presented the Friends of Richmond children’s club with a check for $10,000 to support the art program for young children. With the funds, the program can buy new art supplies for children, improve their curriculum, and help young, creative minds continue to explore their artistic abilities.
The next day we got to meet Kristen Beckworth, the Texas Children’s Hospital’s Manager for the site’s Center for Childhood Injury Prevention division and see how funding from Hyundai helped keep her favorite community-centric event alive: the company’s Car Seat Safety Check at Aldine Fire & Rescue center.
Along with a team of certified car seat installation and safety technicians who spoke both English and Spanish, they explained how Hyundai’s funding helps ensure a pre-installed car seat is installed correctly. For expecting parents, if they express a need, the fire rescue center can provide them with a brand-new car seat and a base at no cost to the visitor–thanks to Hyundai. Even after the event, they can call the hospital and speak to someone to ask questions or make an appointment.
Education, as Beckworth explained, is the best way to prevent an injury involving a child in a car seat. Data says that a majority of serious injuries or deaths of infants and toddlers in car seats were largely in part due to improperly installed car seats, and events like the one Hyundai helped her orchestra are a friendly, approachable, and easy way to learn.
Genesis STEAM Events Help Kids to Go From Thinking to Doing
Next we drove to a local Boys and Girls Club to watch as middle school-aged kids were prompted to essentially engineer a car with a unique design and purpose. They talked about all sorts of things–like an all-electric people mover with a backup generator based on the tire’s rotational energy, a car that closely resembled an F1 race car, and even a sports car that doubled as a boat using solar energy.
Once they had their design down, they were handed a bag of recycled materials, like boxes, straws, buttons, bottle caps, rulers–you name it. With a hot glue gun (used carefully, of course), they brought their concept to life. Some were so proud they took it home, while others went into a lot of detail about how their car worked, what made it work, and why they chose the design they did.
One student designed an amphibious car that resembled a shark, down to the dorsal fin, pectoral fins, a tail fin, and a toothy smiling face. He explained to me that it could even go underwater for marine biologists and be driven on land as a standard car, so it can go from the ocean floor to the research lab in one trip. Watching some of these kids take genuine pride in their work was the highlight of the entire trip.
But it isn’t just about fun–it’s about empowering young minds that aren’t quite bound by the laws of physics or what’s possible, to take their ideas seriously and pursue them. After all, that’s how a lot of today’s greatest inventions, like the laptop I’m typing this one, came to be. It all starts with a “what if.”
Next Up: Car Seat Safety Check and Installation Tips
On an unusually cool Houston morning, I watched as a father expecting his first child, a girl, listened intently to the technician on how to install a car seat in his Tesla. His dad showed up in a Trailblazer, where they both asked how to remove the car seat, how to install it into his Trailblazer when he had to watch his granddaughter, when to take her out for stretches, and I watched them eagerly get their hands on a dummy to learn how to adjust the baby’s straps when putting her in the car.
We watched as a heavily pregnant woman bring in a booster seat, thinking it was a car seat, and technicians explained that the seat was for much older children. The mom’s eyes lit up as she was handed a brand-new car seat to install in her Ford Escape. She was excited to learn how to keep her baby safe.
It made me think about the importance of events like this. Without them, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of families risk driving their little ones around improperly–and increase the risk of a serious or fatal accident they could have walked away from if car seats were installed correctly.
Fun Fact: Texas Was the Final Chapter for Hyundai Hope’s Children’s Hospital Network
If you’re not in Texas, don’t worry–Raelynn Blackwell, the department’s senior manager, explained to me that the Houston area was the final piece of their network’s puzzle. With the company’s and the Texas Children’s Hospital’s new partnership, they now have a partnership with a children’s hospital across the entire nation.
The Pacific Northwest, Northern, Western, Eastern, and now Southwestern US, so the division can host events like the one I attended with other children’s hospital networks across the nation. So, whether you’re in California or New York, there’s sure to be a child car seat safety check event near you. Which, I think, is absolutely amazing.
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