CLARKESVILLE — When Rick Whiting talks about helping people, he doesn’t start with a car show.
He starts with a house that sat at 57 degrees.
A woman living along Ga. 197 had been buying firewood instead of food to keep herself and her mentally disabled son warm. When she called Purpose Church for help, Whiting and the pastor went to see the situation for themselves.
“It was a pitiful situation,” Whiting said.
What followed was not a check or a one-time donation. Church members cut enough firewood to last the winter. Then about 17 volunteers returned, tore off the woman’s unsafe porch and built a new one — complete with a handicap ramp — in about five hours.
“We want the public to know in this story that it’s not just promoting a church event or anything like that,” Whiting said. “It’s about promoting how neighbors help neighbors.”
That idea is the driving force behind the Cruise In With a Purpose Car Show, set for May 8 beginning at 5 p.m. at Pitts Park in Clarkesville. The event is organized by Purpose Church in conjunction with the city.
The evening will feature classic cars, food, live music and a series of tributes honoring veterans, including a color guard presentation, a missing man ceremony, the playing of taps and a 21-gun salute. A bluegrass band is also scheduled to perform, and organizers plan to hold auctions, including cake auctions, to raise money.
“All the money we raise is going to the disabled veterans fund,” Whiting said.
The May event is part of a monthly cruise-in series held from April through October, but its impact extends far beyond the park.
Funds raised through the events are distributed locally through the church’s outreach effort known as #ClaimHabersham. Whiting said the group often gives more than it takes in, helping families and individuals facing hardship across the community.
Among those helped in the past year, Whiting said, was the Hembree family, whose son was battling cancer. The group paid seven months of house payments and provided $1,000 in assistance. Volunteers have also built decks for senior citizens, delivered firewood, purchased a van for a single mother, covered rent for a woman in crisis and helped pay for propane.
“It’s all local,” Whiting said. “To be quite honest, very few of the people we help go to our church.”
That approach, he said, is intentional.
Requests for help often come directly to the church, but Whiting said leaders verify needs before stepping in.
The effort has grown steadily, drawing support not only from volunteers but from the broader community. Whiting said the event now has about 50 sponsors, and the city of Clarkesville has helped promote it as a local attraction.
“They’re putting it on their Facebook page and promoting it real heavy,” he said.
Putting the event together requires significant coordination. On the day of the cruise-in alone, about 25 volunteers handle everything from cooking and serving food to parking cars, setting up signs and managing registration.
“There’s a lot of moving parts,” Whiting said. “But they love it.”
For Purpose Church Pastor Ryan Ginn, the work reflects a broader mission of putting faith into action.
“We just want to serve people,” Ginn said. “We believe that the Bible says that Jesus came to serve and not be served. And so if we want to be like Christ, we’ve got to live like Christ. Let’s serve people.”
Ginn said the goal is to help those who have fallen on hard times while emphasizing dignity and long-term support.
“This is never a situation that is a handout, it’s a hand up,” he said. “We just love serving the people. We feel like that is being the greatest representation of who Christ is.”
He added that the effort is rooted in a broader vision for the community.
“We’re a church that’s in Habersham, and this event is held in Habersham,” Ginn said. “The reason we do this is because we are believing that we’re going to claim Habersham for the gospel of Jesus. The greatest way to do it is to love people and to show people love — not tell people that we love them, but actually show them.”
Ginn said the partnership with the city has helped expand that reach.
“We’ve been very blessed that even the city of Clarkesville has kind of taken ownership with this and linked up with this arm in arm,” he said.
On May 8, that mission will once again take shape at Pitts Park — where classic cars, community gathering and service come together for a larger purpose.
For Whiting, the event’s name still says it best.
“It’s cruising with a purpose,” he said.
