Helping 68 nonprofits for children: track donates half million
Published: December 7, 2005
A 50-foot aluminum Christmas tree lit up, Santa rode in a stock car and a big check was presented to charity at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord on Tuesday night.
The $505,728 donation from Speedway Children’s Charities will help 68 nonprofit groups in the Charlotte region, including Cabarrus Partnership for Children, Boy Scouts of America-Mecklenburg County and Lancaster Children’s Home.
The agencies will use the money for programs ranging from summer camp for kids with cancer to mentoring children whose parents are in the armed forces.
Billionaire Bruton Smith started the charity in 1984. He lost a son to crib death, he said, and wanted to do something to help kids. It has raised more than $15 million since its inception.
“I love children, and we’ve done some great things (at the charity),” he said. “But you can never do enough.”
Smith owns the Concord track and several others through his Speedway Motorsports Inc. Each track has a chapter of the children’s charity, and together they raised $2.4 million this year.
As with many nonprofits nationwide, Smith said, fundraising posed more of a challenge this year, given the competition for donations going to hurricane victims. But the speedway charity said it still raised about $100,000 more than last year.
The tree is the largest to adorn the speedway, standing about three times the size of previous Christmas trees there, speedway spokesman Jerry Gappens said. It is made of cables and aluminum aircraft rigging.
“It’s a nice landmark for the entrance to Concord,” he said, “and it’s environmentally friendly.”
Smith caught flak last year from Charlotte officials who claimed he illegally chopped down an estimated 373 trees along a parking lot he later sold; Smith insisted he had proper removal approval.
Of the metal Christmas tree, Smith said with a chuckle, “We won’t have to cut this one down. It’s not in the way.”
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