Mazda Donates 8 CX-50 SUVs to the Red Cross for Alabama and Mississippi

Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) has donated eight of its CX-50 crossover SUVs to help those in the South with relief aid delivery.

Mazda community support punches way above its weight class. The latest news of Mazda’s generosity is that the company is donating vehicles to the Red Cross chapter closest to the Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc.” (MTMUS) factory in Huntsville, Alabama where the CX-50 is manufactured.

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"Mazda's long-standing partnership with the American Red Cross has spanned nearly three decades and we are humbled by the work they do in the communities we serve," said Naoki Okano, Senior Vice President of Monotsukuri Operations, Mazda North American Operations. "It's an honor to be able to provide the Alabama-Mississippi Region with eight Mazda CX-50s, locally manufactured at our plant in Huntsville, AL, to serve as additional emergency vehicles for local communities."

Mazda has a long history of giving back to communities in which it does business. Since 2015, MNAO has delivered 90 vehicles to charitable agencies, including the Red Cross offices that are most in need of new transportation. The Red Cross uses its fleet of Mazda community emergency vehicles to execute the mission of responding to disasters and providing shelter and resources to those affected, along with supporting biomedical services.

"For the past few years, we have been on the ground responding to an increasing number of tornadoes, home fires and other disasters," said Mark Beddingfield, Regional Chief Executive Officer of the Red Cross Alabama and Mississippi Region. "This generous donation of vehicles will not only enable us to fulfill our unwavering commitment to protect life and alleviate suffering, but its versatility will allow us to meet our wide range of needs—from biomedical services to disaster response."

Mazda has been building its popular CX-50 five-passenger crossover SUVs in the Alabama plant since 2021. 

If you would like to support the Red Cross, start here.

Image credit Mazda: Michael Ponter of Hiley Mazda (left), Mark Beddingfield of American Red Cross (middle-left), Naoki Okano of Mazda North American Operations (middle-right), and Matt Meyer of Hiley Mazda (right) gather to exchange 2024 Mazda CX-50s for community emergency vehicles in Alabama.

John Goreham is an experienced New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can follow John on Twitter, and connect with him at Linkedin.