Highlands Church to hold charity car show

Highlands Church will hold its fourth annual car show from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sept. 18 at 371 Glasgow Road in Bella Vista.

Registration will begin at 9 a.m. for the free event that is open to antique, late model, stock, custom, street rod, muscle car, rat rod, foreign, domestic, off-road, sports car, exotics, future project, work in progress, motorcycles and any other type of special vehicle.

Event chairman Steve Terry said the event started four years ago with 50 cars and grew the next year to 70 and then last year had 150.

“It’s turned into the biggest car event in Bella Vista,” he said.

The show is free, but organizers request a $10 donation for the meal provided. Hot dogs and brats will be served.

Anyone who brings a vehicle gets a free meal ticket. All proceeds go to three charities with Gravette Schools.

Snack Packs for Kids is a charity that provides snack packs on Fridays to get food insecure children through the weekend. Terry said about 100 children are enrolled in the program, and volunteers from the church package the snack packs.

Samaritan’s Feet is an organization the church partners with to provide shoes for children. Terry said the church was able to provide more than 150 pairs of shoes this year.

Bright Futures is a charity that has a board of directors at Gravette. The organization helps school children in any way that it can, often with clothing, backpacks and school supplies, Terry said.

The car show is dedicated to the memory of John Edwards and his work for Gravette students. Edwards was a school board member at Gravette and a member of Highlands Church.

Terry said there are no entry fees, no awards and no judging — “just a fun day.”

“It’s a real simple deal. You’ll be parked in a couple of minutes,” he said.

He credited co-chairman Ted Lasher with taking care of many of the details for the event, including creating the graphics for the tickets and flyers and helping train the volunteers.

“He certainly deserves a lot of credit. He’s just been the backbone of the whole thing,” he said.

Terry said the church formerly held a tour of homes for 17 or 18 years to fund its charities, but the number of volunteers required for the event was not sustainable because a volunteer had to be present in every room to ensure nothing was disturbed.

“We were looking for a way to maintain our fundraising for our charities and we came up with the car show It has worked really well,” he said.

“We were looking for a way to maintain our fundraising for our charities and we came up with the car show. It has worked really well.”

— Steve Terry, Highlands Church car show event chairman