Twelve-year-old Isabel saves on her cell phone the concert ticket of her favorite K-pop (Korean pop music) group, which will soon perform in Barcelona. For months, the teenager has been hospitalized in Madrid for a serious illness and clings to the illusion of seeing her idols live when her strength falters. Imagine the moment when the singers go on stage, the trip to the Catalan capital from Madrid with the family, the hotel stay and even the Korean restaurant where they would like to eat before entering the concert.
Your dream will be possible thanks to Miles of dreamsthe program of the newly formed Flexicar Foundation. “We ask you what you see in your dream, how you imagine that day,” explains Bárbara Prats, director of the institution supported by this company. “The girl told us: ‘I see myself dressed like them, I see myself eating in a Korean restaurant that day…’. We don’t give surprises, we work with her so that she can see herself and sustain an illusion that gives her strength,” she adds.
“These children, who experience isolation and a real threat to their future, must be able to maintain the ability to project themselves”
The Flexicar Foundation, in the final registration phase, is already planning how to carry out many of its actions, which aim to accompany minors suffering from serious illnesses so that they can imagine their future. “Something that for many is daily and almost automatic, for them becomes fragile between treatments, hospitals and absences from school,” says Prats.
Experiences that accompany treatments
Bárbara Prats describes in detail the essence of Miles of dreams. The foundation will work with hospitals in the Community of Madrid and with children who have been diagnosed with diseases considered serious by the World Health Organization (WHO). The selection of children who will receive these experiences will always be carried out by healthcare personnel. “We believe that these children, experiencing isolation and a real threat to their future, should be able to maintain the ability to project themselves. Our work is based on organizing experiences that give them happiness, motivation and the possibility to disconnect from exhausting treatments,” says Prats.
It is not just about fulfilling wishes in a festive sense, but rather about experiences that accompany inner processes. “When you ask any child what their dream is, you’re not looking for something immediate, but rather something that connects to identity and the future,” Prats says. “If you take away from a child the ability to look ahead, to dream, you rob him of something essential. Giving him the dream of being able to work and live with hope is giving him an engine. For us, that engine has the fuel, which is the ability to plan and believe in what is to come”, adds the head of the Flexicar Foundation.
Requests can take the most diverse forms: a child who dreams of being a doctor and wants to spend a day seeing how those who take care of him work on a daily basis, a teenager who wants to know the university where he would like to study, or a child who wants to see his sister again and travel with his family to the Canary Islands.
For each case, the foundation creates a collaborative network. “We talk to families, doctors and companies to create the experience that the minor wants,” explains Prats. And he continues: «It is not an isolated gift. It is a joint construction, experienced and accompanied.”
“The creation of the foundation is a way to give back to society part of what Flexicar receives”
Flexicar’s history as a used vehicle company is known for its expansion and presence in different parts of the country. What is perhaps less known is the human tissue that supports that structure. “Behind every car there is a committed team. And selling cars is only possible because there are people who buy them. Creating the foundation is a way to give back part of what you receive”, summarizes Sara Goizueta, head of communications at Flexicar.
A path of previous goals
The Flexicar Foundation is the result of a journey that the company has been following for years, as Goizueta explains. “It was a natural evolution since the company started to grow. There had been donations and collaborations, but we had to take another step,” he clarifies.
One of the previous milestones came in 2022 in the collaboration with the Pequeno Deseo Foundation. That year, Flexicar tied its traditional used car fair to a solidarity campaign: for every vehicle sold during that period, an amount was donated to the foundation. “It worked very well and we were able to fulfill many of the children’s wishes,” recalls the company’s communications director. “It was our customers who made it possible. We committed to donating a portion, but it was the purchases on those dates that generated the help,” he adds.
This success was followed by a second campaign in May of the same year and subsequently by a donation to the López Mariscal Foundation for its inclusion and education work in Andalusia. Furthermore, during the damage that drastically affected the province of Valencia a year ago, Flexicar allocated vehicles to support transport and cleaning activities in the affected areas.
The car company regularly buys Christmas hampers which it distributes to its employees at the Juan XXIII Foundation, which helps people in vulnerable situations, and has collaborated at Flexicar headquarters with a solidarity Christmas market.
These specific actions served to reinforce the idea of creating something permanent. “A grain of sand to build what will soon officially be the Flexicar Foundation, which will allow us to channel commitment constantly and with a clear purpose: to encourage these sick children to focus on something that helps them look forward,” sums up Goizueta.
