FORT WORTH, Texas (August 2, 2012) – Texas Motor Speedway’s Speeding To Help program embarks on its fifth year and the community outreach initiative will take on five volunteer projects during August that will touch various points of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.
The projects will range from assisting organizations that help feed the hungry to putting the finishing landscaping touches on a new playground that Speedway Children’s Charities-Texas Chapter funded for the Butler Branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Fort Worth. Various numbers of Texas Motor Speedway staff, including president Eddie Gossage, will serve as volunteers on the respective special projects throughout the month of August.
The speedway staff will volunteer their services to assist the Tarrant Area Food Bank, Feed The Children, 6 Stones Mission Network, Dallas Zoo and the Butler Branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Fort Worth. The month-long program will culminate with the announcement of the expansion of Texas Motor Speedway’s “Speeding To Read” educational program for elementary schools in the Northwest Independent School District.
Here’s a glimpse at the upcoming Speeding To Help events (media alerts with full details will be sent as each event nears):
- Friday, Aug. 10 – Roughly two dozen Texas Motor Speedway employees will landscape a new playground that was built for the Butler Branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Fort Worth. The area was converted from a vacant lot into a brand-new playground that serves as a safe haven for these children thanks to Speedway Children’s Charities-Texas Chapter awarding the organization a $150,000 Founder’s Grant in 2011 to fund the project.
- Thursday, Aug. 16 – The Dallas Zoo will be the next benefactor of volunteer help from Texas Motor Speedway as staff members will tackle two projects in the children’s zoo area. The group will work on the removal of a fence in front of the JC Penney Discovery House Exhibit as well as create a stone walkway into the Discovery House Butterfly Garden area.
- Wednesday, Aug. 22 – The speedway staff will visit the Tarrant Area Food Bank to help sort, inspect and box food for less fortunate families. Volunteer help like this empowers the food bank and its network of partner charities to feed approximately 300,000 Texans annually. Each month, on average, the network distributes food to more than 40,000 households and serves more than 565,000 meals and snacks across 13 counties.
- Tuesday, Aug. 28 – Texas Motor Speedway, through SCC-Texas, will partner with Feed The Children and Bedford-based 6 Stones to assist in FTC’s vision that no child or family goes to bed hungry in America or around the world. Feed The Children will provide a truckload of non-perishable food essentials and personal supplies that will be distributed by TMS and 6 Stones volunteers and aid 400 families in the area.
- Friday, Aug. 31 – Texas Motor Speedway will announce the expansion of its NASCAR-themed, incentive-based “Speeding To Read” educational program at the Northwest High School football stadium. The pilot program debuted just last year with Clara Love Elementary in Justin and was deemed a huge success at the 627-student, K-5 school as 96 percent of the students met or exceeded their reading goals. This initiative was taken on by Texas Motor Speedway because reading plays an instrumental role in everyday life, and development of this skill at an early age can be critical to a student’s future. Every school day in America, 3,000 students drop out, and the majority of them are poor readers. Students with below grade level reading skills are twice as likely to drop out of school as those who can read on or above grade level.
In the past four years, Texas Motor Speedway’s Speeding To Help program has provided assistance to the United Service Organization (USO) of Dallas/Fort Worth; Children’s Medical Center in Dallas; Habitat for Humanity; Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth; Homes For Our Troops; United Community Centers, Inc. of Fort Worth; North Texas Food Bank; Dallas Arboretum; Christian Community Action; Fort Worth Parks and Recreation; Rosemont 6th Grade School of Fort Worth; 6 Stones Mission Network; Community Powered Revitalization; Dallas Life Homeless Shelter; and Clara Love Elementary School.