Touch-A-Truck fundraiser highlights Norfolk’s rural roots
- Chris Abbott
- Apr 23
- 2 min read
Chris Abbott
Editor
Langton and Norfolk County’s rural roots were on display April 12 for the third annual Norfolk Little People’s Daycare Touch-A-Truck in the Langton Arena parking lot.
It was an opportunity for children of all ages to get behind the steering wheels of stationary trucks – and tractors – to see what they look and feel like.
A record 1,110 people visited the Touch-A-Truck fundraiser to see everything from the massive combine to mini excavators, fire truck, cement truck and recycling truck, and what seemed like a fleet of tractors, large and small… 44 pieces of equipment in total.
Children were wide-eyed and smiling as they climbed in and on and around the vehicles.
“The big takeaway last year was that people loved the small things, so this year I tried to find more small things like the Gators, the small Bobcat… it doesn’t have to be huge,” said Touch-A-Truck coordinator Candice Vanhie.
“I try to find different pieces of equipment that are unique, or that people might not know what it is. Being in Norfolk County, we have access to a whole bunch of different things, like the automatic asparagus picker here.”
Norfolk Little People’s Daycare includes children from the Langton area, Tillsonburg, Norwich, Delhi, Simcoe, Port Dover and more.
“We have a wide geography – and if everyone brings friends, it’s people coming from all over,” said Vanhie, who remembers visiting a Touch-A-Truck in Woodstock with her sister-in-law and their kids, thinking ‘we live in a farming community, we could do this.’
“We just thought it would be a fun event. And I like bringing the community together.”
The first successful, but modest, Norfolk Little People’s Daycare Touch-A-Truck fundraiser in 2023 welcomed the community to ‘touch’ 15 vehicles, mainly from their families.
That number grew to 28 in 2024, and on Saturday, April 12 they filled Langton arena’s west parking lot with vehicles… along with a Straw Bale Race Track for tricycles, face painting, food and beverage trucks, bounce castles, 4-H animal education area, and raffle tables.
“It’s just the small things that bring so much joy to a kid.”
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