♪♪ [John Wells] Vintage Torque Fest started out as a classic car show with a couple of vans and it has grown to a festival that includes dirt track racing, mini bike racing, art show.

So, people have taken it upon themselves, hey I really think that there should be a pin-up contest, make that happen, and I do it.

♪♪ [John Wells] It started out with our own story and it has transformed into helping all these other people.

I think a lot of people may only know a certain aspect of the show.

But everyone should know that it's a fundraiser and that it's there to help people who are going through a really hard time.

It has been very organic based on the music, the lifestyle, the vintage clothes, the cars, the racing, whatever it is.

♪♪ [John Wells] Basically, the hot rod community started whenever these guys came back from World War II and they had to channel their energy into something else and it was these hot rods and these motorcycles and going fast.

And you had these magazines dedicated to what a hot rod was and how to update these old jalopy's to where you could put a really big engine into a very lightweight car.

And that had a lot of appeal to a lot of people up until I'd say about the mid-60s.

And so that is when Detroit kind of caught on and said, you know what, why don't we make our own little car that is going to be fast?

Hence the Mustang, the Camaro and so it became a factory way of them making hot rods.

That kind of changed the whole community.

And so, that's why we focus on pre-1965 and that is kind of the cutoff, the muscle cars, I love them, raised with them, but that's not what this event is all about.

It's very niche, but that is what we try to focus on.

♪♪ [Kim Wells] We've done events for years, like since we were in college, in different ways and then he was very involved in the car community.

Our daughter was born in 2006 and we didn't have our first event until 2010.

[John Wells] We were unprepared.

[Kim Wells] We were.

[John Wells] Because we lost a lot of money those first couple of years.

That first year, man, I remember looking across the field and seeing hundreds of people just walking and I was like, none of those people are paying to get in.

[Kim Wells] And then we were like we might lose our house because we're not getting enough money from this stuff, you know.

[John Wells] And it was a great learning experience because we then were like okay, what do we have to do to try to actually make money?

♪♪ [John Wells] And then this year we were both revitalized because we had this wedding that happened at our event.

Take you Travis to be no other than yourself.

[John Wells] It was really emotional.

[Kim Wells] It was because we were kind of like, how long are we going to do this?

Are we done?

I now pronounce you married.

Travis, you may kiss the bride.

[Kim Wells] The couple that got married, they met at our show.

Just seeing kind of the love and the support and going, you know what, who cares if we're tired.

This is a community, this is important.

And for those of you that don't know, these are our girls.

We started doing this when Hannah was three and Madison was eight.

[John Wells] This whole event started with the birth of our child, Hannah Wells.

She was born with some congenital heart defects.

[Kim Wells] I was 22 weeks pregnant, went for the normal ultrasound and were told there's some calcifications on this baby's heart.

She had critical aortic stenosis, which would lead to hypoplastic left heart syndrome.

And that is a congenital heart defect that leads to three major surgeries where you basically only have one side of your heart working.

And so, what they did is they went in and opened up her valve.

Her valve was the size of the tip of a pen.

They were able to open up her left ventricle and she's got four chambers in her heart and it was a terrifying experience at the time.

But we were just like we'll do whatever we can do to save our baby.

Then she had open heart surgery at two where they repaired her value.

[John Wells] And I was already really involved in the classic car community.

I went out and told a couple of these guys that we were going to be facing these financial issues.

And they said, well you should have your own event and have it be a fundraiser.

And so, Cheater's Car Club from Milwaukee And Los Punk Rods out of Kansas City, they both came in and said, we're going to help you and the very first event was a smash hit.

They literally gave us the money to put the show on.

That's how important it was.

[Kim Wells] Initially the first couple of shows were to help Hannah, our daughter, and I think it was her second surgery.

We sat in her room and she was recovering and we could hear -- sorry -- we could hear families crying because their child just died.

♪♪ [John Wells] And when you go through something like that, it changes you.

[Kim Wells] And I looked at John and I said, what are these other families doing?

They don't have the support and all I could think of is this poor mom who is in here sobbing, she's going to have to pay these flipping bills even though her child is gone.

And I'm like, we've got to do something, we've got to do something to help these other families.

[John Wells] And then we created the actual foundation, which is an actual 501c3.

We've raised -- [Kim Wells] We've helped raise over $200,000.

[John Wells] And in the beginning we were giving $3000, $4000 -- [Kim Wells] If even, some of those first families didn't, you know, I feel bad in some ways now because I'm like now we're able to give a lot more to the adoptive families.

Who had a good time -- (cheering) [Kim Wells] Especially this last show, we had two precious families that were able to help.

[Megan Mathiowetz] It's hard.

It's incredibly hard.

But you just get thrown into this whole new world and it's not just the heart, everything is connected to the heart.

So, all of a sudden you start seeing your cardiologist, but it's like nutrition and developmental specialists and all the therapy and it's a lot.

[Korey Carlton] There's just so many emotions.

There's good, there's bad, there's ugly, I mean, it's just -- you expect to have a healthy child and do all these things and then could go on and have a great appointment or you can come out and just be completely devastated.

That's what we like about Vintage Torque Fest and being with other heart families because they truly get it.

They understand what we're going through as well.

We were lucky enough to raise $6,974 -- [Korey Carlton] Obviously financially has been a huge thing, but emotionally -- randomly get a message from one of the other heart families or the Wells' and you're like, okay, they made it through it.

You can get up and you can do this and keep going.

♪♪ [Kim Wells] I'll be honest, when it comes to the heart families and what we've raised, I don't ever feel like it's enough.

We are really, really happy to be able to, through the Foundation, without any of the other stuff, we are giving you guys $10,000 each.

(cheering) [Kim Wells] And I'm grateful, but I hope we can do a lot more.

[John Wells] And so, if people want to think that it's just a car show, great.

But know that without the Helping Hannah's Heart Foundation, this show would not happen.

♪♪