Rescue Ride Begins Memorial Day

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! Winchester Rescue Mission’s (WRM) second annual Rescue Ride will be coming to the mid-Atlantic this upcoming Memorial Day. For nine days starting May 31, this journey will be staying close to home. “We’re going to start and end in Winchester,” said Brandan Thomas, executive director of the Winchester Rescue Mission. “We’re going to go from Virginia to North Carolina, over to Tennessee and Kentucky, back to West Virginia, and then here.”

Several Citygate Network Bluegrass District states will be hosting Brandan. His “rough riders” will be touring at least a half dozen missions, stopping to stay the night at several member missions along the route. While there, they will be considering how each campus had dealt with COVID-19 in 2020. They will be “checking in and seeing how everybody’s had to make adjustments and change over the course of the pandemic,” says Thomas. “Homelessness has changed drastically since the last Rescue Ride.”

The plan for this year’s trip is to videotape portions of the ride for a documentary while raising funds for the mission. Each participant—eight so far with room for more—has agreed to raise at least $1,000 for WRM. Thomas says he is still seeking to secure $250,000 to produce a documentary about the first Rescue Ride though he recently received a pledge to cover half of the production costs. There is a chance the documentary could include the new footage when the remaining $125,000 is raised; however, producers may hold on to the new footage for a second film.

To learn more about the Rescue Ride, email info@winrescue.org or visit rescue-ride.org.