4/3/2023
BAPS Motor Speedway
BAPS Motor Speedway Partners with Elementary School to Bolster Local Community
YORK HAVEN, Pa.: Children approached the Newberry Elementary School Tuesday evening with their mouths open and buzzing with excitement. Even the parents had a smile on their collective faces.
Racecars sat in the back parking area of the school. There were also two cornhole boards set up with a make-shift ring toss and other activities for the kids.
The smiles got a little bigger as parents and their kids, kindergarten through fifth grade, filed into the gymnasium for the Scholastic Book Fair. Shelves of reading material, scooter races, and balloon animals were just some of the activities there to enjoy.
There was a different feel around the annual event. It was sponsored by BAPS Motor Speedway and other companies and featured free T-Shirts, free food, and more for kids as a way to promote racing and community relations.
“The PTO has always been involved with our Scholastic Book Fair, and we started expanding on it to make it family and community oriented with different games and activities,” School Principal Travis Peck said. “Some of the parents on the PTO reached out to BAPS [Motor Speedway], and they jumped on it right away and were willing to help out and be a good community steward.
“We are just working together to expand this. It’s just community partnership coming together to help kids understand that reading is important and fundamental. Seeing racecar drivers at a reading event, these kids are going to gravitate to that, because these drivers are superheroes to them. They look up to them as role models, and that will help them with reading and bringing people together.”
Kolten Gouse, General Manager, at BAPS Motor Speedway went to a Book Fair at the school in the Fall with his girlfriend Katherine Scruggs and their son Bennett. It didn’t take long for Scruggs and Gouse to get involved.
A connection was made, and Scruggs attended a PTO meeting. From there, Gouse, the PTO, and the school had a meeting and put together an event that would most benefit the kids in the community.
The first step was getting free T-Shirts for the kids. Gouse helped organize a group of local businesses, including Save Rite Auto Sales and Service, Adams and Sons HVAC, ACR Auto Core Recycling, Dressler’s Electric Services, Wintermyer Auto Salvage and Repair, Rehbein’s Service Center, and Reeser’s Soft Ice Cream, to purchase 250 shirts to hand out the day of the event.
Next up was food. Thanks to Weis Markets, Sage Fruit, Herr’s Chips, Pizza Shop of Etters, and BAPS Motor Speedway, children and parents were treated to pizza, chips, apples, and drinks during the two-hour affair at no cost.
“We always wanted to do something with the school district, and now having a little one in kindergarten, this was the perfect time to get involved,” Gouse said. “I think it’s very important for businesses to be involved with their community. It helps with relationships and partnerships, and when we are able to do something like this, it adds value to the speedway and what we are trying to achieve.
“I think it’s important for speedways to get younger. We have to get younger as a fanbase and with our race teams by bringing in new people. If we can get some of these people to come out and support our races, I think that is a positive direction for the speedway and for contributing to the betterment of the community.”
When you entered the gym, shelves of books appeared to the left. On the right was the BAPS Motor Speedway booth where Gouse and his staff were giving out free Monster Truck tickets, toy cars, and checkered flags.
Kids came up to the BAPS booth multiple times. When they were done there, they filed over to the balloon animal station, got something to eat, and competed in scooter races. Regardless of where you looked, the gymnasium was packed with parents and children having a good time.
“It’s amazing,” Scruggs said. “I think a lot of the kids really appreciate it, and I think it’s awesome getting everything donated. I think it was important to have everything free for them so they could focus on having a good time.
“We wanted to try a lot of racing activities, so they could be like, ‘Oh, this is by my house and is really cool to come to.’ It’s so fun to see everybody having a good time.”
Along with having fun, kids were being exposed to reading. Parents could purchase books to help build their own home libraries and expand the learning capabilities of their children moving forward.
“Elementary schools are the foundation of education,” Peck said. “If we get students reading at an early age, get parents involved, and the community involved ... It takes a village to raise a child. We can’t do it individually.
“We need to come together. These are our future racecar drivers, our future doctors, our future lawyers, and our future local business owners. So, bringing that partnership together for local families, it’s just going to help make for a brighter future.”
Said Gouse, “There might be kids with a lot of things going on in their personal life, or maybe they aren’t able to participate in things like going to movies or sporting events, and I think something like this could go a long way for some of these kids. Sometimes, one kid just needs that one person or event to show them, ‘Hey, this is what we can do.’ That is important.”
Article Credit: BAPS Motor Speedway
