Man Paddles Pumpkin Boat 150 Miles for Charity
by Allie Comeau on October 25, 2008 
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It’s one thing to grow a 760-pound pumpkin in your garden. It’s quite another to carve one out and paddle it down the Wisconsin River. But that’s exactly what JR Hildebrant just did.
Grown in the garden of Randy and Denise Glisczinski of Amherst, the giant pumpkin was hollowed out so Hildebrant had somewhere to sit while he floated down the river – a trip that would take him 8 days.
“I selected that pumpkin because I liked the shape and size. I learned, though, that you can’t steer a pumpkin. It goes wherever it wants,” he said in the article in the Marshfield News Herald.
The eight-day journey down the river was not without its trials and tribulations. Hildebrant was dumped in the chilly water five times and endured wind and choppy water. He also had to replace his pumpkin with a significantly smaller one after the original’s bottom rotted out from being in the water too long.
“In addition to getting wet, we would have to chase the pumpkin down and bail it out,” Hildebrant said.
By the time he got to Spring Green, the pumpkin was rotting from taking on so much water.
“The bottom was just about gone,” he said.
Hildebrant drove to a nearby town and picked up another 605-pound pumpkin in which he finished the journey. He likened the pumpkin switch to being “like going from driving a Cadillac to driving an Escort.”
Two pumpkins and 150 miles later, Hildebrant landed in Iowa. And it was all for a good cause. Hildebrant raised money for the Tri-City Children’s Dream Foundation Build a Dream Retreat in the south Wood County area, an organization that sends special needs children on trips and vacations. He raised $16,000 for the organization.
