Agriculture students at the University of Guelph were all smiles as they geared up to pull two massive tractors to raise money for Food4Kids Guelph on Wednesday morning.
The annual Tractor for Tots program, put together by students at the Ontario Agriculture Culture, is in its 14th year.
Every year students collectively supporting a different local charity. Last year, the team donated $10,000 to the Wyndham House to help youth struggling with homelessness.
“This year we’re going to donate $10,000 from this event for Food4Kids Guelph to help support the kids for the weekend they package food for,” said member of the OAC TractorTug for Tots committee, Hannah Symington.
“It's something that has become very popular over the years. Everyone always looks forward to it at the beginning of November.”
The 35 teams participating consist of eight to 10 members each. Each team pays $200 which entitles them to four pulls of the tractors with a rope on Reynolds Walk on the university campus.
The teams compete with one another for the fastest pull. They also take turns pulling the 12,000 pounds John Deere tractor and 10,000 pound Case IH tractor.
A second competition also sees two different people pull a small ride-on lawnmower each.
“Every year for the past few years, we’ve been trying to donate $10,000. That’s just dependent on the number of teams we have. We have a minimum 200 registration fee for each team and then we encourage extra fundraising on top of that,” said Symington.
Symington says the entire event raises awareness for not only the charity but for the OAC programs as students stop to gawk at what exactly is going on.
And using a tractor to do that just seems right says Symington.
“It just fits well with our OAC and agriculture,” said Symington as participants wore trendy leather ‘Aggie’ jackets to pull tractors.
