On August 22, churches from across Richland County are putting on a free family event at the Mansfield Speedway with one stated purpose: to be a fresh injection of hope into the community. It’s organized by a group that calls itself Godsfield — a cross-denominational revival movement that has been uniting congregations across the county — and organizers expect it to be one of the largest faith gatherings in the region’s history.
But that’s not the first thing worth talking about. Not until you understand the bigger story. And I think I’m a fair person to tell it, because I’m an outsider here — I came to this with no stake in any of it, and what I found was a city quietly doing something most places only talk about.
A city rebuilding itself in plain sight
The Festival of Hope lands in the middle of a city that has spent years deliberately rebuilding. That context is the reason the day makes sense to the whole community, not just the churches behind it.
Mansfield is a legacy manufacturing town. As the Greater Ohio Policy Center notes, it was “once a hub of manufacturing,” and its decline “began in the 1970s,” bringing community-wide blight and population loss. Drive through it now and you see a different story being poured in concrete. Downtown is in the final year of a $19.3 million Main Street Corridor Improvement Project — a roughly 20-month rebuild scheduled to finish in October 2026 that converts Main Street back to two-way traffic and adds new sidewalks, brick crosswalks, lighting, and gathering spaces in Central Park and the downtown plazas. Eighty-two percent of the funding comes from outside the city, anchored by a $7.3 million federal RAISE grant secured in 2022. And it didn’t come from the top down: it grew out of “Mansfield Rising,” a downtown plan that a group of local emerging leaders authored in 2019 — work since featured by the Greater Ohio Policy Center as a model other Ohio towns can learn from.
The comeback isn’t only bricks. Ohio has posted the largest drop in opioid overdose deaths of any state since the national peak in 2023 — annual deaths fell about 63 percent, from roughly 4,300 to about 1,600, as of October 2025 — and Richland County’s recovery organizations are part of that statewide turnaround. Lives that addiction had written off are being brought back, one at a time.
Every one of these is the same story told in a different language — something written off, brought back. The downtown. The people in recovery. And, fittingly, the racetrack itself.
A track brought back from the dead
The venue is the story in miniature. The Mansfield Speedway opened in 1959, was a regional proving ground for decades, hosted NASCAR Truck Series races in the mid-2000s, then sat abandoned after 2019 — grown over and written off like so much else.
Then former NASCAR driver and Ohio native Matt Tifft and his wife, Jordan, bought the property in 2025 and poured more than $5 million into reviving it, reopening the gates on May 2, 2026. Tifft’s own Cup Series driving career was cut short by an epilepsy diagnosis in 2019; rather than leave the sport, he moved to the business side and became the youngest team owner in NASCAR Cup Series history. He knows what it is to be told a chapter is over and find the story wasn’t. “We’ve been able to really reinvigorate a community that lost one of its favorite pieces in town,” he told Spectrum News.
By the organizers’ account, Tifft came to the Festival of Hope on his own: midway through the churches’ spring March of Prayer, he contacted a steering-committee member saying he felt called to host the event at his newly revived track.
The people on the stage
This isn’t a church event with a few guests bolted on. It’s a gathering of people already doing the work of restoration in Richland County, each carrying a piece of the same story.
Judge W. Steve McKinley leads the Richland County Juvenile Court. Appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine in 2019, he runs his court on the “balanced and restorative justice model” — community protection, personal accountability, and helping a child succeed in the areas that were driving destructive behavior. A father of six, his life’s work is the second chance for the next generation.
Jess Wilging, executive director of Godsfield and Fusion Church Lexington’s director of outreach and recovery, carries the day-to-day vision — and the personal stake. “Being a recovered addict myself, I see the number one thing that makes people stop short in overcoming their mountains is losing hope,” she told Richland Source. “If hope stays lit, people accomplish the miraculous.” The keynote message will be carried by evangelist Markus McFolling, who played professional football until a career-ending injury led to a prescription-drug addiction he has since overcome; he now leads the ministry Reach1.
Why a racetrack, and why now
The choice of venue is the strategy. People who would never walk into a church will come out to a beloved local landmark that just came back to life. People come for the day; the message of hope is what they find when they arrive.
And the timing is no accident. The churches behind Godsfield have been gathering for years — a March of Prayer this spring drew more than 35 congregations across denominational lines. “We’re building something that reaches beyond any single church,” co-founder Rev. El Akuchie said. “This is about community, revival, and the presence of God transforming Richland County.” The Festival of Hope turns that same unity outward toward the city, at the exact moment the whole community is visibly betting on its own future.
That is the day, gathered onto a single field: a city’s comeback, named for what it has been all along. Hope — not as a slogan, but as the thing this community has been quietly proving is possible for years.
Festival of Hope is a free, family-friendly community day at the Mansfield Speedway, 400 Crall Rd. E., on Saturday, August 22, 2026 — free and open to everyone. Visit the Festival of Hope page for details, to register, donate, or volunteer.
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