WEST BOUNTIFUL—The West Bountiful Car Show is more than just looking at cool cars – it’s helping fund research for Alzheimer’s and dementia.

“I work for Todd and Scott Hughes,” said Bryan McCurdy, vice president of Marketing, Business Development, Human Resources & Risk Management for Hughes General Contractors. “It’s a family business that’s been building in the community for 70 years or so. Their father started going down this path (Alzheimer’s). That was tough on the family and what they found in the process was that as he's going through Alzheimer’s and dementia, there was no place for them to go for answers.”

It’s just not talked about very much, said McCurdy. “So the awareness alone of being able to get information out in the community was becoming more and more challenging even with some of the resources and depth of resources that they have as a family.”

It’s still tough to get answers, he said. “There’s not really a good way to protect those that are going down that road from themselves or from family members or other people that may want to take advantage of them either mentally, physically or financially.”

So they decided to start a foundation, McCurdy said. “They said ‘we need to start raising some money to be able to get some better research and some better awareness’ and that’s where this all stemmed from.”

This is the fourth year for the show, he said. “It’s just been treated as a little community kind of car show event where it’s no cost for people to come but we do charge for entry of vehicles.”

There’s all kinds of motorized stuff that people can come and see whether they live in West Bountiful or somewhere else, said McCurdy. “This is where some of the family lives so they want to keep it close to home.”

McCurdy said the more they found out about the Alzheimer’s Association and what Utah is doing with their research the family started to influx some resources their way to help out. “We’re not looking for notoriety or flash,” he said. “It’s not who we are but we did know that we needed to make a difference and when the family got together they just wanted to see that people had quality of life and what we’re finding is that more and more people are coming out saying ‘yeah I didn’t really know what resources there were and I didn’t know where to find them.’”

Some said they didn’t even see the signs of what was happening, he said. “They just knew that their loved one was different than they had been and didn’t know what to do.”

It’s hard because it’s not a disease that can be corrected, said McCurdy. “It’s not something that can be treated with medication, it might only slow things down.”

There’s probably close to 250 entries, McCurdy said. “It’s a family friendly event. We have some food trucks and a few vendors that have asked if they can come because they’re donating the proceeds of what they make back to the event so that we can pass the money on. It’s a 501(c)(3) event.”

All ages are welcome, he said. “There will be plenty to do and there’s some raffle tickets. We are giving away a trip to Hawaii and this year we’re giving away a razor. Those are some of the things that we do to raise some money.”

The car show is Aug. 1 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at West Bountiful Park, 550 W. 1600 North.