Pullers, Pies Raise $1,800 for Hopkins

The Chesapeake Garden Pullers did it. They raised over $1,800 for the John Hopkins Pediatric Oncology, with a few checks still coming. That sum more than doubles last year’s benefit pull.
    Clyde Schuyler, the president of the puller’s club, was so distressed by the meager $800 they raised last year that he almost skipped this year’s benefit pull. Now he’s happy he didn’t.
    The money raised goes to Johns Hopkins Pediatric Oncology Outpatient Center to help buy toys and games for kids stuck there for hours or days at a time.
    “I got a lot of extra support this year,” Schuyler said. “We had more tractors this year and a lot more people talking about it after Bay Weekly featured our event.”
    Edgar Sr. and Emma Thomas of Samuel Parks Farm provide the field for the track, and Edgar Sr. helps Schuyler run the show.
    Somerset County Tractor Pullers brought new faces to the benefit pull plus checks from people who couldn’t make the trip.
    This year’s pull had a special guest, a 13-year-old leukemia survivor. His lawn mower couldn’t budge the 3,000 pound load, but Schuyler gave him a first place trophy anyway.
    “I said, Son, first place isn’t big enough for what you’ve overcome.”
    Schuyler will do just about anything for kids and for his seven-year-old lawn tractor pull. After losing a pull-off to one of the kid pullers, he took seven small whipped cream pies to the face, one from each kid in the Chesapeake Garden Pullers club.