TOL History
The Truck of Love Story
In 1967, Gordon Stewart from Our Lady of the Rosary Parish in Fremont drove a truck full of clothes and toys to Fr. Elias Galvez OFM, stationed in the Arizona desert serving the native American population.
Gordon's 13 year old daughter, Leslie, named the project "Truck of
Love". After the first truck, friends of Gordon asked when it would
happen again. So Gordon began a twice yearly trip to serve the desert
people.
Pete Fullerton made his first trip with Gordon in the fall of 1972, and continued traveling with Gordon twice each year, until Gordon's death in 1976. Pete continued the truckloads to Arizona after Gordon's death, and then, in 1986, Truck of Love became a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.
The work expanded to local work in the San Francisco Bay area with local poor. Pete began to make trips to Tijuana, Mexico, and facilitated group trips to Tijuana from 1986 to 1996.
A connection was made on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation in 1985, and a Summer camp for the O'odham children was begun in 1987.
Until July 1998, Pete was the primary physical mover of all the donations that came through our doors. All that changed due to an accident at the 1998 Summer Day Camp. Pete was no longer able to do much of the day-to-day physical work. Added to that, we lost our warehouse in December 1999, and so Truck of Love got completely out of the business of collecting stuff.
Truck of Love continues to grow and change, each day we are out visiting with people in Rock Hill, SC. Because of your generosity Truck of Love is still able to fill in where other organizations cannot.
Life has not stopped for Truck of Love. Life has changed and it is better than ever. We have once again let go of the familiar and are excited for the future. All God's blessings are there when we listen and make ourselves available!