HANGIN' OUT WITH THE REDNECK YOT CLUB

It all started with a song. One evening, while sitting on a houseboat on Charles Mill Lake, three dockers listened to country music star Craig Morgan twang about “basstrackers, bayliners and a party barge”. Three years later those three dockers, Carol Calland, Pattie Hostettler and Susie Sawyer, have turned the song “Redneck Yacht Club” into the biggest, craziest social club on Charles Mill Lake: the Redneck Yot Club.

“When we started the club, we just wanted an excuse to come out to the lake and have a good time,” Calland said. “We all started out as friends, but now we’re more like a big dysfunctional family.”

But there’s more to these “rednecks” than meets the eye. Since the club’s inception in 2005, members have used parties and events to raise money for charities like the American Heart Association, the Girl Scouts of America, UMDF, Pancreatic Cancer Research and Hospice. All the charities have a personal association with members of the club.

“We give what we can to these charities because we really believe in paying it forward,” Hostettler noted. “Every organization we give to has a personal connection to our club. The closer people are to these charities, the more they are willing to give because they can see an impact on their lives.”

Their last event, a silent auction, helped raise over $1,400 for their charities. Many other events this summer, like a poker run and the Mifflin County Fair, have netted similar results, with everything going toward charity. Still, the three founders have no interest in making the Redneck Yot Club an official non-profit organization. Instead, they rely on their anthem’s saying of “there’s no signing up, no monthly dues”.

“We want to keep things simple around here because that’s what keeps it fun,” Sawyer said. “We’ll keep having our parties and events, but we don’t want to be official. We just want to help save the world one can at a time.”

Keeping it fun seems to be no problem for this group, which have become a permanent fixture on the houseboat docks at Charles Mill Marina. In fact, they are just about everywhere, from the campground, to houses around the lake, to houseboats on the lake itself, often seen anchoring together into giant convoys together on the lake. Most members call the Mansfield area home, but some make trips from Columbus, Cleveland, Chicago, even Seattle.

“Our friend’s sister and brother-in-law lives in Seattle but wanted to come to the poker run, so they flew in for a long weekend and had a great time,” Hostettler said. “Some people don’t even have boats or come over from the campground, but still have a great time. We are mostly a word of mouth club, so people know what they’re getting into when they come by.”

So the next time you are out at Charles Mill Lake, make sure to idle on up to their party barge and grab a drink with the “rednecks”, because when the Redneck Yot Club has fun, everybody benefits.

For a look at some of the Redneck Yot Club's events this summer, head over to our photo album page.