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| - This central claim is true. Separately, a popular meme told the same story with some aspects shared from similar acts of kindness. For example, one aspect of the story shared in text and memes said Tim Walz picked up an extra coaching job so his family could manage to give away the car. Local and national news articles also credibly reported that aspect but it was unrelated to the story about the car.
An online rumor tells the story of a time when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and his wife, Gwen, purchased a new car and then gifted their old vehicle to a next-door neighbor in need.
This rumor circulated online with just weeks to go until the November 2024 U.S. elections. Walz was campaigning alongside Vice President Kamala Harris as her running mate on the Democratic Party's presidential ticket.
For example, on Aug. 28, a Facebook page supporting Harris and Walz named Ridin' With Kamala posted (archived) a quote meme telling the story. By the next day, the post had received over 39,000 reactions, 1,300 comments and 11,000 shares.
Other prominent social media accounts and websites that shared the same meme included the progressive Facebook page The Other 98% (archived), X user @EastEndJoe (archived) and AmericasBestPics.com.
Users appeared to primarily share this rumor in the form of the quote meme, which credited a man named David Fink as its author. Fink's original Aug. 25 Facebook post (archived) and automatically crossposted Threads post (archived) read as follows:
Tim Walz story from a cousin who knows him personally.
Tim and Gwen have always only had one car. In the early 2000s their next-door neighbor, who is a single mom, had her car break down. Tim and Gwen decided to get a new car and then gave their car to the next-door neighbor. Tim was teaching at the time and picked up an extra coaching job in order to do it. Tim has never told the story, but his neighbor has.
I love first-hand stories like this one. I admire this kind of altruism.
By email, Fink described to Snopes what such first-hand stories mean to him and shared news articles reporting on the matter that provided credibility for us to establish a "True" rating for the central claim about the gifted car, with at least one clarification. The aspect about Walz picking up an extra coaching job referenced a different act of kindness unrelated to the car story.
To learn more, we contacted Sherri Blasing, a former next-door neighbor of the Walz family and the current principal of Mankato West High School, where Tim Walz taught social studies and coached football. By phone, she told us, in part, that the gifted car — nicknamed "Laverne" — lasted her family for a number of years. More of our interview with Blasing appears later in this story.
We also contacted a Walz campaign official to ask about this matter but did not receive a response before publication time.
A Buick Named 'Laverne'
On Aug. 6, Minneapolis-based TV station KARE 11 reported details about the gifted car. The article documented Blasing's story.
KARE 11's Morgan Wolfe reported, "Blasing said when her family was struggling with getting their four children cars in high school to drive themselves to sports, Walz offered them one of their old cars for free."
Wolfe also filed a video report, in which Blasing said, "Tim and Gwen were [getting] rid of this old Buick. And Tim just said, 'You guys just want to take this car?'"
The Associated Press and Mankato Free Press also published articles about the gifted Buick. The AP reported:
The current high school principal, Sherri Blasing, did not teach with Walz, but she and her family lived next door to him for 22 years. When Blasing's four children became teenagers, her family found themselves short on transportation. Walz gave them an old Buick they named "Laverne" that she said was a testament to Walz's generosity.
"You see that common theme with Tim over and over again," Blasing said, "That he values every person for who they are, and he is going to do what he can to help them be the best that they can be."
Blasing: 'Laverne Was the Best One We Ever Had'
In our phone conversation with Sherri Blasing — the Walz family's former next-door neighbor — we asked about the popularity of their story involving the gifted car.
"They just had this old Buick," she said of the Walz family, adding she believed they received the car around 2007. "And they said, 'You know what? We're just going to get rid of it. Would your kids want this?' Which was great, because, I mean, they could have sold it. It was a nice car. They could have got money for it. And we just said, 'Gosh, that would be great.' I mean we have four kids going all different directions."
"Our kids named it Laverne because it was an old lady car," she said while laughing. "They named all of their cars. That was just a thing that my kids had. One of them got this Grand Am one time. They named that 'Suzette' because that was a little fancy car, they thought. But 'Laverne' was the best one we ever had, that's for sure, for the kids."
While Blasing did refer to the car as an "old Buick," she also said one of her children drove the car through part of high school and two years in college. Then, another one of her children drove the car for several more years. "That car lasted us a long time for those kids." She added they eventually sold the car to a junkyard for "a few dollars," saying, "That was the end of Laverne."
She told us she didn't remember for sure if the Walz family "always only had one car" or were buying a new car at the time, as asserted by the popular meme. She did, however, say that while she was not a single mom as referenced in some popular memes, "I do know that we did have a single mom in our neighborhood that [the Walz family] did help out quite a bit. I know that they had a [graduation] party for the oldest daughter when it didn't look like they were going to be able to have one."
Fink: 'Tugged at My Heartstrings'
During Snopes' phone conversation with Fink, he told us, "I have a cousin who is very active politically and he lived in Minnesota for a very long time. And so, I sent him an email and said, 'Hey, do you have any stories about Tim Walz? Personal stories. I'm curious.' And, he sent me an email with a few stories. And I just picked the one I liked the most and I posted it."
Fink continued, "I'll tell you, I like personal stories from people I know that have met candidates. To me, the personal stories carry more... they resonate more with me than mainstream media. More [than] I think if it comes from a publicist or if there's a spin on it or whatever it is, a direct source who knows the person, to me, is more reliable or meaningful, personally, than a stranger."
"I have a friend from college who worked for the State Department for his whole career. He told me Hillary Clinton was the best boss he ever worked for. That meant a lot to me. That was, to me, just valuable information. So, when I have the opportunity to have that direct information particularly from someone I know and trust, to me that's important. All politics are grassroots, supposedly, and what's more grassroots than somebody from Minnesota who knows him?"
"Do I think a nice person makes somebody a good candidate? Not necessarily," he said. "Does it make him a good person? Probably. Do I care? Yeah, I kind of do. I kind of care about values and morals and ethics. And that story, to me, was a very short way of kind of defining a person's values. A couple's values. And, to me, that kind of tugged at my heartstrings a little bit. I thought, 'I need to share this.' This is interesting to me. Maybe my friends will find it interesting, too."
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