25-07-2025
- Automotive
- Chicago Tribune
Aurora woman among five Kane County residents who get cars through Midas initiative: ‘No one can take that from me'
On Amy Bergeron's first drive in her new car, she blasted Hanson. Not rap music, not the current pop hits. 'MMMBop' is her song of choice.
Even though it was July, she turned off the air conditioning, opened the sunroof and rolled down the windows, she recalled. The traffic surrounding Chicago made the first part of the drive slow, she said, but then was able to pick up speed as she got into the suburbs.
'I was hot stuff,' Bergeron, 39, said. 'Probably not if you saw me. You're probably like, 'Oh my God, this woman's weird.' But I was living it up.'
This wasn't just Bergeron's new car — it's also the first car she's ever had in her name.
Bergeron, who lives in Aurora, is a mother of six, and a veteran. Recently, she was a recipient of a car through a giveaway from a program with Midas called Project Spark.
Project Spark is an initiative by Midas giving cars to individuals in need. Midas franchises refurbish and then donate them from time to time across North America.
Six Midas franchises — in Tinley Park, Downers Grove, Grayslake, Chicago, Evanston and Barrington — recently participated in a six-car giveaway. The six recipients were given the keys to their new cars at an event at Soldier Field in Chicago on July 2, according to a press release from the public relations firm publicizing the giveaway.
The Project Spark program has existed since 2018, according to the PR firm, and the number of events fluctuates from year to year — this year they have 12. There were about 50 submissions for the recent Chicago giveaway, she said.
Five of the six recipients from the July giveaway were from Kane County, including Bergeron.
Jacob Zimmerman, superintendent of the Kane County Veterans Assistance Commission, said Midas approached the county about the program, looking for nominations for area veterans to apply to get one of the cars. Four of the individuals they recommended ultimately were awarded cars, he said, and another person from the county was also awarded a car.
The Veterans Assistance Commission has developed a network of veterans they've helped over the years, Zimmerman said, which helped streamline the process for the Midas program. He said he and his staff in the county keep a list of 'folks who are (in) hard times, that maybe need a little hand up every once in a while.' In addition to pulling from their own connections, they also reached out to other area veterans organizations.
'Just being connected with the community, I think, really was a win here,' he said, saying he hopes the county can participate in the program in the future.
Bergeron, for example, has participated in county programs to help her get back on her feet after a yearslong struggle with drug addiction.
She served in the Army starting in 2005, working in medical logistics, according to her service records. She was honorably discharged in 2010 with a non-combat disability.
Bergeron said she got hurt during her military service, and got addicted to pain medications.
She ultimately got into legal trouble over it. In 2015, she was charged with identity theft and attempted unlawful acquisition of a controlled substance for reportedly stealing the name and drug identification number of a medical professional in an attempt to refill fake prescriptions, according to past reporting.
'At that time, I wanted to get clean, I just couldn't do it,' Bergeron told The Beacon-News. 'Like, I couldn't force myself to do it.'
It took some time before she got fully clean, she said, and explained that she landed back in court several times after that. But she ultimately got help from Kane County's Veterans Treatment Court, and completed a course and rehabilitation program. She was previously featured in a column for The Beacon-News about the county program.
She referred to the identity theft as both the worst and best thing she did, because 'so many good things came from that.'
Since then, she's gotten some help from the Kane County Veterans Assistance Commission, like through the recent car giveaway.
'From the point on that I got myself in trouble, they've really been there,' Bergeron said.
She also got help from a Montgomery-based program called Veterans Smile, through which she underwent a dental procedure and had her teeth extracted for a set of dentures for which she was featured in another column in The Beacon-News.
But she had trouble tolerating the dentures, she said. And then she got pregnant with her youngest child, and was unable to undergo another surgery.
But she's going back in for another procedure to hopefully one day get a permanent set of teeth, she said, on Tuesday displaying a text confirmation on her phone about her scheduled appointment.
And now she has a car to get her where she needs to go. It's a 2008 Infiniti, she said, with enough seats to hold all six of her children, ages 18, 16, 14, 11, 5 and 1.
'It makes me feel like I'm rich when I drive it,' Bergeron said.
Before, Bergeron was able to drive a van owned by the family of her younger children's father, but this is the first car she's ever had in her name, she said.
'No one can take that from me,' Bergeron said.
This school year, she'll be able to use her new car to take her children to school and get groceries from the store. She explained that her 5-year-old daughter has nonverbal autism, but she and her daughter's father are going to start doing a homeschooling program with her when she starts school this year, while also taking care of their baby.
That means Bergeron may be able to go back to work, she pointed out.
Before, she was concerned about not having consistent access to a mode of transportation to get there. She receives some money to pay the bills because of her disability during her military service, but that 'doesn't take care of the sanity,' she said, describing her day-to-day of talking mostly to her children. She hopes that one day she can own her own house.
But now, several years clean from drugs, Bergeron's life already looks a lot different than it was — with a car, and the possibility of getting a job someday soon. And she has new hobbies, like tending to the vegetable garden in her back yard.
There's cucumbers, corn, bell peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, potatoes, chili peppers and what she thinks is a wild pumpkin. It's one more thing she's gotten since recovering from her addiction.
'I started (gardening) when I started getting sober because it would just give me stuff to do,' Bergeron said. 'And then, when I started paying attention to all this stuff that I'm putting in my body anyway that's killing me, I'm like, 'Well, I can grow my own, and it doesn't have all this stuff in it.' … I just like being healthier.'
