This Saturday, Aug. 15, the Rotary Club of Sammamish will wave the checkered flag to start their annual Rotary Challenge Gravity Race to benefit Life Enrichment Options (LEO), a community based non-profit organization which supports people with developmental disabilities.

The entire community is invited to watch this exciting soap-box derby, held near Discovery Elementary School at the corner of Southeast 24th Street and 228th Ave SE, Sammamish.

Twenty local children with special needs will team up with community volunteers in a day of fast and furious racing, beginning at 9 a.m. and running non-stop until noon.

Lunch and award presentations will be held from noon to 1 p.m.

Southeast 24th Street, which runs beside Discovery Elementary School, will be blocked off to regular traffic.

For this one special day it will instead be a race-track where two soap-box derby cars, each carrying two children, will race side by side.

Local businesses provide sponsorship to cover the costs of the race, and proceeds will go toward LEO’s current project, a home for five young adults with developmental disabilities.

The home is a great example of LEO’s work, which also includes advocating for recreation and employment opportunities, and sponsoring community education forums.

This not only enables special-needs young adults to live independently and safely in a socially-active environment, but also relieves their parents of the worry of what will happen when they are no longer able to care for their adult child.

Many who have attended the soap box derbies in Issaquah and Sammamish in previous years are moved by the selflessness of everyone involved.

Children volunteer drivers must meet the following physical requirements:

Height – not taller than 5 foot 2 inches

Weight – not more than 130 pounds

Age – 11 years old or older

The requirements for the special needs passengers are the same with the exception that the minimum age is 5 years old with no upper age limit.

For more details and to register, call Leo Finnegan at (425) 392-5682 or email to finneganleo@aol.com.