SAUGUS — If you heard cars rolling down Summer Street Sunday afternoon, you were most likely hearing the Blessed Sacrament Church parking lot being filled with vehicles for the sixth annual Mom’s Cancer Fighting Angels Touch a Truck.
The lot had cars from Lightning McQueen to firetrucks, and people immediately came filing in when the clock hit 2 p.m.
“This is one of our two big events we do each year,” the organizer of the touch a truck, Guy Moley, said. “And knowing how successful it was and how much the community looks forward to it every year, we knew we wanted to continue it.”
Moley spoke to the head of the Massachusetts Pink Patch Project to help get things rolling. The event would give back to breast cancer awareness and the National Kidney Foundation.
“It’s for breast cancer awareness, and it’s for officers affected by cancer in their families,” Moley said about the Massachusetts Pink Patch Project. “And my dad actually had passive kidney failure. He died about 20 years ago. So we were like, you know what, why don’t we continue the touch a truck this year and we’ll split it down the middle, keeping some for cancer and some for the National Kidney Foundation.”
Moley has been involved in these types of events for years, including car shows at Fuddruckers and taking part in the Saugus Trunk-or-Treat, which also occurred in the church lot.
The group used to take part in the Relay for Life of Wakefield; however, after 25 years, the walk is no longer happening.
“We did recently get invited to the Greater Arlington Relay for Life, which was actually last night. It seems like they have a great thing going, and for all intents and purposes, it looks like it will continue,” he said. Moley said that if the walk continues, the seventh annual Mom’s Cancer Fighting Angels event will have 100% of the proceeds going to the American Cancer Society.
When asked what inspired him to do these events, he explained that he went to a couple of touch a truck events with his team.
“I said, ‘We should add a secondary event,’ and somebody said, ‘You need to do something for the kids at the car shows.'” Moley said. “That got me thinking, wait a minute, let’s do a touch a truck because that brings kids in. They get to climb in the trucks, take a picture, see what they like.”
Moley had one story specifically that got him hooked.
“The first year that we did it at Fuddruckers in Saugus, a front-end loader was parked with Agganis Construction, and there was a little kid in the bulldozer. Well, the next day, I went to a car and coffee event, and the hostess had said, ‘Oh, you ran the touch a truck yesterday.’ And I said, ‘I did.’ She told me her son was there, and I asked if he enjoyed it. She said, ‘I couldn’t attend, but my husband took him. And I have a video of him sitting behind a front-end loader going ‘Mommy, mommy, look, I’m a bulldozer driver.” Right at that point, I knew this event had to continue.”
And continue it did. Sunday’s event included food, ice cream, decked-out cars, a K9 demonstration, a karate demonstration and, of course, Boston Batman.
