SOUTHRIDGE SPEEDWAY: Loving a community in need

On July 17, 2020, a fire tore through the Madison Place Apartment building, instantly changing the lives of 49 families. They lost their homes, their belongings, and their sense of security. The Langley community immediately rallied to offer donations of clothing and furniture in an effort to help the families rebuild. While this was very appreciated, they really needed so much more. That’s when Paul, the Executive Pastor at SouthRidge Fellowship Church stepped in. He arranged a sizeable donation of gift cards from the church’s Benevolence Fund for the families to help purchase food, clothing, household items, medications, etc. He also reached out to the church, asking them to pray about how they could help. Immediately more donations of gift cards and money came in as people felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit to help those in need.

At the same time, the church had purchased a number of pedal cars and wanted to hold events as an outreach to the community. There was a real sense of needing to reach our community but how do you do that during a pandemic? As the Outreach team began to think about how to use the cars and what the events might look like, they caught hold of Paul’s desire to help the families of Madison Place and before long the direction for the pedal cars became very clear. In a very short time a number of key individuals took the vision, created a series of events, organized a team of volunteers, asked God to bless their efforts, and began the SouthRidge Speedway.  

For 3 weekends in August, the SouthRidge church parking lot and the Langley Christian School parking lot beside them were transformed into three separate race tracks. There was an adventure course where groups could pedal their cars around searching for a series of numbers to solve a puzzle, a time trial course where they could test their speed on a short track and vie for the prize of being the fastest in their age group, and a race track on which they could race around a winding course against the members of their group. The cost to ride the SouthRidge Speedway—a donation to the families of the apartment fire.

The community loved it! Not only were they able to help the families, but they were able to do something fun as a family in an entirely COVID-friendly event.

The volunteers who helped to make these events happen were so happy to be out serving in the community again. As they served alongside each other and connected with families, they realized how much they had missed it. We often forget that serving others is a gift, not only from us, but to us, and this was felt in a big way at the events.

All in all, the events raised over $1700 in donations for the families. Add that to the $10,000 from SouthRidge, $5000 from other churches and businesses, and over $1200 from SouthRidge families and we have a grand total of almost $18,000 that God has blessed us with to support the families of Madison Place.

What a great witness to those families who lost everything—as well as to the community—as they saw a church step up, use what they had, rally with other churches, and serve.