Dan Cummins Donates $100K to CASA at Final Angel Tree Event
From left, Josh and Dusty Cummins present CASA of Lexington Executive Director Melynda Jamison with a $100,000 donation, taken from the sales of vehicles at the Dan Cummins family of dealerships in 2022.
CASA of Lexington finished its sixth and final CASA Angel Tree event of the year at Dan Cummins Chevy Buick Dodge Ram in Paris Tuesday. The event brought two good pieces of news: every child from the CASA Angel Trees has now been picked by someone who will buy them gifts this holiday season; and the Dan Cummins family of dealerships has once again made a $100,000 donation to CASA of Lexington!
In 2021, Dan Cummins donated a portion of every vehicle sold to CASA of Lexington, up to $100,000. The program called Dan Cummins Cares was repeated in 2022, and Josh and Dusty Cummins announced at the Bourbon County CASA Angel Tree event on Nov. 15 that the dealerships had already reached their target.
Support from the Cummins Family
Josh Cummins speaks about the need to break cycles of abuse during the CASA Angel Tree event Tuesday.
CASA of Lexington Executive Director Melynda Jamison said the Cummins family has been an amazing supporter of the CASA mission because they want to be part of the solution for children in need in central Kentucky. The family’s contributions — now in the hundreds of thousands over multiple years — have helped enable CASA of Lexington’s expansion to serve hundreds more children, she said.
Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteers are matched with children in the local family court system who have been abused or neglected. Each volunteer visits their child monthly, talks to adults involved in the child’s life and reviews medical and educational records. The CASA volunteer provides reports to the judge that help get the child more services and hopefully return to a safe, permanent home as quickly as possible.
Jamison said it costs about $1,000 to give a child a CASA volunteer for one year, meaning the $100,000 donation from Dan Cummins represents 100 children receiving a CASA volunteer. She thanked Dan Cummins employees for making the donation possible by selling cars.
“It’s thanks to you that each one of those lives will be changed for the better,” she said.
Josh Cummins said there are too many children and families stuck in negative cycles of abuse or neglect. Thanks to CASA volunteers, “hopefully, those cycles can be broken and these children can go back to living their lives,” he said.
Final 51 children picked from Bourbon Co. CASA Angel Tree
Participants pick names of children in need of holiday gifts from the CASA Angel Tree Tuesday.
At the CASA Angel Tree event Tuesday, participants picked 51 names of CASA children from the tree. They will go shopping for the children’s holiday wish lists. Once participants purchase the kids’ wished-for gifts, CASA volunteers will deliver the gifts unwrapped to the families or caretakers of the children, in time for them to wrap them for the holidays.
“The CASA Angel Tree is a great way for families and the general public to get involved in supporting these children, even if they can’t serve as CASA volunteers,” Jamison said. “We are thrilled to see the community show up for these children, who have been through more trauma than many of us will ever see. And we’re always thrilled when someone not only participates in the Angel Tree event, but goes on to become a CASA volunteer and advocate for a child, as well!”
More than 400 children were picked from CASA Angel Tree events in six counties this year.
Anyone still interested in participating in this year’s CASA Angel Tree can purchase supplemental gifts from CASA of Lexington’s Angel Tree wish list on Amazon, available at https://bit.ly/casaangeltree. Those gifts will be used to supplement what is purchased for the children and balance the quantity and quality of gifts given to sibling groups.
If you are interested in becoming a CASA volunteer, you can visit www.casaoflexington.org/learn or email info@casaoflexington.org.