IN THE 405
Driven to Do Good Adam and Toni Ely of Hard Luck Automotive Services motor forward with generous, talented partners B Y E V I E K L O P P H O L Z E R | P H O T O B Y C H A R L I E N E U E N S C H WA N D E R
Litahni “Shawshank” Shawhan, Adam Ely, Toni Ely and Monte Huffman comprise Hard Luck Auto.
hile swiping through Match.com in 2010, Toni Ely stopped short on one image. “He had a picture of himself lying on the ground with his daughter lying on his back,” she says. “He was covered in tattoos, he had facial hair and he was loving on his kid. It just won me over.” The two discovered much in common. Both served in the military. Both were parenting daughters. Both had visible appreciations of art – Adam Ely in his tattoos and Toni Ely in her paintings
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and graphic designs. She felt there was something magnetic about him, and the two married two years exactly after the day they met. Others have been curiously drawn to him, too. In 2017 the couple started Hard Luck Automotive Services, a nonprofit providing free car repairs. Their mission states if you can afford the parts and they can fix it, they will. Their charitable work has garnered local, national and international media attention; more than 20,000 Facebook followers; and incredibly generous partnerships, with all eyes on Adam Ely.
