By Rachel Fioret, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Woolwich Observer
The Ontario Agricultural College’s annual Tractor Tug for Tots on October 24 raised $15,000 for a local children’s charity.
Teams of students and faculty hauled tractors all day long at the iconic Reynold’s Walk on the University of Guelph campus.
Led by the Student Federation of the Ontario Agricultural College, the organizers hit their fundraising target.
This year, the money will go to the Children’s Foundation of Guelph and Wellington.
The tractor pull attracts students from all programs and backgrounds.
Twenty teams of students and faculty were assembled for the famous tractor pull, with about ten participants on each team.
“It’s pretty cool to be involved in a fundraiser like this,” shared Taylor, a third-year student in the Agricultural Business program at the University of Guelph. She participated in the tractor tug this year with a group of her friends and has been on the executive team for the past two years.
More than two hundred students and faculty were involved in the fundraiser.
The crowd was in high spirits as they watched teams haul large tractors down a main pathway on campus.
Event organizers also included a lawn tractor pull so that anyone on campus could stop by, participate, and donate to the cause.
“We try to get as many people on campus as possible,” shared Jillian Ohm, the Tractor Tug for Tots chairperson. She is in her fourth year of the Crop Science program and has been on the executive team for three years.
With greater campus involvement comes greater support.
The Children’s Foundation of Guelph and Wellington focuses on community building so that children have opportunities for a successful future.
The Foundation offers programs like Adopt-A-Family, Food Security, Free to Grow, and Educational Support. Each program has a goal to support the mental, physical and educational well-being of children and youth.
The money will support the Keep Kids Fed at Home and Keep Kids Fed at School programs this year.
“The impact is huge. Understanding the impact this has on one individual youth and what the program has done for that youth just shows it’s all worth it for this one individual,” said Scott McRoberts, the agency’s chairman.
He said he was in awe and excited to learn that the Tractor Tug donations were going to the Children’s Foundation, as he is also the director of athletics at the University of Guelph.
With the rising cost of living, as many as 1 in 4 children in Ontario live in a food-insecure household.
“There’s no label to say that kids are being fed at home, or this kid is food insecure, you actually don’t know,” McRoberts said.
Around five per cent of children in the Guelph and Wellington community are severely food insecure.
Keep Kids Fed at Home provides weekend food support to some 500 students each week with a take-home bag of nutritious food.
Keep Kids Fed at School feeds more than 16,000 students annually, providing 2.5 million meals.
“It’s quite impactful to see the community rally around and support this critical program,” he said.
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