Motorcycle ministry’s Ride for Rescue will aid Modesto Gospel Mission

A Ride for Rescue will begin Saturday morning at Modesto Gospel Mission to raise money for a planned building that will greatly increase the number of women and children who can be sheltered at the Yosemite Boulevard site.

The event is being held by the Soldiers of the Cross motorcycle ministry, a five-year-old group that has about 30 members in Modesto and 15 in Stockton.

The mission itself put on Ride for Rescue before, but the event “never gained traction for us,” said CEO Kevin Carroll. While it helped raise awareness – mission program participants shared testimony – it wasn’t working as a fundraiser. “At the end of the day as a nonprofit, you don’t want to lose money,” he said.

Carroll spoke earlier this year with Soldiers of the Cross President Ben Hardister of Modesto. “They just didn’t have enough people show up to pay for the food, venue, insurance,” Hardister said. Carroll shared with him that the mission over the past three years has had to turn away 900 to 1,000 women and children because it didn’t have space to shelter them.

Money raised through this year’s ride to the foothills and lunch afterward at Hardister’s rural home will go into a fund designated for the women’s and children’s building, anticipated to cost about $2.5 million.

The L-shaped, two-story building, expected to have 80 beds, will go up next to the current women’s and children’s shelter, which has 54 beds. Participants in the mission’s Women’s New Life Program, which prepares homeless people to return to society, will relocate to another building, Carroll said, freeing up 20 more beds.

So the total shelter capacity for women and children will be about 154. The new building also will have a kitchen where the mission will have healthy-eating classes, Carroll said.

The mission has been working for about 2 1/2 years on preparing for the building, including working with the city, Carroll said.

“There’s a huge capacity problem in Stanislaus County,” he said, adding that if every woman and child who needed shelter suddenly sought it, the mission, The Salvation Army and Haven Women’s Center of Stanislaus couldn’t accommodate them all.

“The women and children are the most vulnerable on the streets,” Carroll said. “Haven does a great job, but it has only 22 beds, and they’re full all the time. ...

“There are a lot of abuse victims in the population we work with. If there’s no space in the shelters or Haven, they have to go back to difficult circumstances. I don’t think any of us would wish that on someone.”

The final cost of the building will depend on who comes to the table to volunteer services, Carroll said.

Hardister said he expects Saturday’s event to generate about $50,000. Already, the fundraising has exceeded $25,000, he said, including a dozen sponsors who’ve contributed $1,000 apiece.

“People who don’t ride can come to lunch,” said Hardister, who has worked in real estate and related fields of business for 35 years and has homes in Modesto and Sonoma. At the lunch, he’ll make an appeal for donations, he said. “The ride is just the sparkplug to bring people together. ... We need donors to be able to step up with a couple hundred thousand dollars.”

Not that the meal is one of those $1,000-a-plate affairs. It sounds like a bargain at $10 for barbecued spare ribs, plus pasta and salad donated by BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse. BJ’s staff also will be serving its “signature root beer,” Hardister said. Music will be provided by a gospel blues band.

And the event raffle is “off the hook,” he said, with prizes including a barbecue smoker, a variety of hand tools, compressors, a jewelry store gift certificate and more. Raffle tickets of $100 also are being sold for the first prize 2016 Harley-Davidson Street Bob, second prize Beretta over-and-under shotgun and third prize Glock 17 9mm handgun.

There will be a silent auction, too, for trips including four nights and five days at a house in Cabo San Lucas.

This story was originally published May 11, 2016 at 11:06 AM with the headline "Motorcycle ministry’s Ride for Rescue will aid Modesto Gospel Mission."