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Festival Gives Back
Written By: Luke Osteen | Issue: March 2024
Highlands Motoring Festival pauses (just briefly) in its preparations for the 2024 Festival to reward a trio of local nonprofits with the proceeds of the 2023 event.
Though organizers of the 2024 Highlands Motoring Festival are clearly focused on the details surrounding the event, which will be staged from June 6-9, they took a moment this week to present funds raised from the 2023 HMF to a trio of local human needs charities – the Literacy and Learning Center of Highlands, REACH of Macon County, and the Community Care Clinic of Highlands and Cashiers.
The 2023 Highlands Motoring Festival was the most successful in festival history by every measure, including financial support to local human needs charities. To commemorate this accomplishment, representatives from the three nonprofits were on hand to receive the proceeds. The festival’s net proceeds of $105,000 were distributed equally between the three charities.
Highlands Motoring Festival is a 501(c)(3) non-profit operated by an all-volunteer team of classic car enthusiasts.
The sixteenth annual Highlands Motoring Festival was held on June 8-11 of last year. Amazing collector cars could be seen on town streets during the four-day festival which consisted of two days of driving tours, two evening gatherings, a Main Street parade, and two car shows.
The centerpiece of the motoring festival was Saturday’s “Classics in the Park” juried car show that attracted an attendance estimated to be upwards of three thousand people, to view eighty-five classic cars.
The motoring festival has grown significantly in stature over the years, not by increasing the number of show cars, which is limited by the capacity of Kelsey-Hutchinson Founders Park, but by raising the level of quality of the cars by going to an invitational entry process. Over 50 volunteers joined the 15-member planning committee to stage the events.
“The Highlands Motoring Festival Committee would like to thank the entire Highlands community, including citizens, volunteers, businesses, organizations, and Town officials and staff, without whom none of this would have been possible,” said HMF spokesman Steve Ham.
This article is also an opportunity to remind our readers of the 2024 Highlands Motoring Festival, which is racing toward us with the smooth assurance of the pre-WWII classics (including Brass Era, and American and European cars) that’ll be the theme of the event.
Registration is open at HighlandsMotoringFestival.com.
