Tractors hit the road for charity

Chantal Hortop

A dozen tractors and one classic truck made their way from Ormstown to Huntingdon on Saturday, June 22, in a fundraiser for the Betty Riel Foundation. The path they traced from Chateauguay Valley Regional High School to the Huntingdon Fairgrounds was but a drop in the bucket compared to the car trips to and from Montreal with people receiving cancer treatment that are funded by the foundation.

Betty Riel, who was on site for the event, says that just in the past three months the foundation has financed 348 trips from the Chateauguay Valley to hospital centres in Montreal. Started in 2003, the organization works in conjunction with SABEC, a volunteer-based community transportation service: volunteers from SABEC do the driving and the funds raised by Riel and her supporters pay for the cost of the trips.

“It’s with help like this that we can continue helping,” Riel said of the tractor parade, adding that when people and their families get a cancer diagnosis, they are “so shook up” that aid with the everyday realities of dealing with the disease is crucial. “Every penny that comes in pays a trip,” she explained, and “we live in a place that’s unbelievable” in terms of how willing members of the community are to help one another.

The parade wound its way down Route 138A, crossing Route 138 at Dewittville to go up the Connaught Road and then through Huntingdon to the fairgrounds where the drivers enjoyed a meal from Restaurant Bothai, refreshments and music.

The organizer of the event, Kevin Dineen, said that he “always wanted to have a tractor run” and after his family was touched by cancer, he thought of organizing an event for the benefit of the Canadian Cancer Society. When he mentioned the idea to his friend Lorne McNaughton, however, McNaughton suggested the Betty Riel Foundation instead and Dineen thought “even better!”

Dineen said that apart from the mountain of paperwork required to get permission to have an event of this kind on the roads of the Valley, this spring’s weather posed a challenge, with a large number of tractors and their drivers out working in the fields, taking advantage of the warm weather that had arrived at long last. Many of those who would have liked to take part donated in any case, and at press time Dineen said that $1300 had already been donated to the Betty Riel Foundation, and that he expected the final tally would be at least $1600.

With 2020 already in his sights, Dineen said that for next year, in terms of numbers of tractors, he is “sure we can double it … or shoot for 50 tractors!”