touch a truck

A little over a year ago the principal at Abby's school suggested we organize a Touch-a-Truck event as a fundraiser for our school. Saturday found us and six other local public schools up to our eyeballs in trucks of every shape, size and description.

The number one question I get whenever I've mentioned this event is.... What is Touch-a-Truck?

Well the organizing committee got together 60 different vehicles at our local fairgrounds. We had just about any truck you could think of.... fire, ambulance, milk, water, transport, boom, horse trailers, a helicopter, race cars, heavy equipment, the bookmobile and a homemade transformer car to name a few.



These vehicles were "open" to the public. You were able to get up close and personal with all the vehicles, sit in them, climb on them, take pictures with them. This was our first time with this event and none of us were really sure what to expect. By the time things got underway at 10am I was already declaring the entire thing an overwhelming success. Right away we had scads of people piling in the gates. There were vehicles stashed in all three horse rings and every available nook and cranny they could find in between.



This event was organized with the co-operation of the other 6 local public schools in our area with the proceeds from the gate being split evenly between. Additionally each parent's council was invited to have their own booth to raise additional council funds. Not really knowing what to expect we opted to do face painting, temporary tattoos and balloons.



I think I pretty much just blew up balloons all day. Mike and Grandma Linda were selling them almost faster than we could get them blown up. My hands were a mess after 5 hours of tying up latex balloons. At some point in the days before the event ML had the great idea that we set up a corn "sand" box.



I will admit I didn't know if it was really worth the work. It was a pretty labour intensive project getting ML's old 16 foot inflatable ring pool set up to fill with corn, but it turned out to be the hit of the day....



A $2 donation gave the kids a "play-all-day pass" (aka a green dot on their hand). At one point Papa counted 20 kids in that thing. Luckily young Andrew took the job of policing that project and ran with it because while I was up to my eyeballs with balloons, ML and Roberta were painting faces non-stop while Jen bounced between face painting, temporary tattoos and helping me with balloons. We really could have used three more sets of hands and that was after putting my kids, Papa and Grandma Linda to work too.

Some observations...

• By and large the crowd was made up of mostly families (they estimate about 8000 people came through), but I was surprised at how many couples were there to check things out.
  
• Also interesting, how eager the ladies were to climb in and out of all the different vehicles. Wasn't just the little ones who were excited about the opportunity to sit behind the wheel of a big rig.
• And the lines... folks were lining up 10 and 20 deep to get into some of the heavy equipment.
• I really would have loved the chance to roam around and snap some pictures, but we were just too busy to even take much of a break. That place was ripe with awesome photo opportunities. The ones I posted are just quick shots I snapped with my phone.
• I 100% admit, ML was right. The corn was a fabulous idea and well worth the work we put into it. Next year we'll just make it a little less labour intensive.
• Saturday was the first time we'd volunteered as a family. Abby helped out selling balloons and temporary tattoos. Maya was in charge of cutting ribbon for the balloons. Even more heartwarming.... I hadn't asked either of them to help, they just pitched in on their own.
  
• To the ladies I worked with on Saturday, a million thank yous for being such amazing Moms. So glad to call you friends. To Papa and Grandma Linda, thanks for watching my babies and thanks for helping out even though I hadn't asked.
  
• Our council did very well, bringing in a respectable amount of cash. There are, of course, expenses that will come out of that, but most of it was a one time purchases. Meaning next year will be bigger and better for our bottom line.
  
• This is way up there was one of the coolest events I have been involved with. Cannot wait to do it all again next year.