Even before the crew season gets underway, Farmington rowers are in motion. But when you see them today and in the next few weekends, they’ll be logging miles in cars, not boats, as they sell tickets for the upcoming Duck Race.

For the annual Duck Race, planned for May 8 at the boathouse, residents buy rights to small plastic ducks, which are numbered and tossed into the Farmington River to race down a short track. Within about a half hour, six ducks usually emerge from the current through a chute, and are proclaimed winners. Corresponding ticket owners can win between $60 to $1,000 prizes.

The race supports the Farmington Crew program. But the crew program, said Friends of Farmington Crew fundraiser Darlene Cirilli, is also committed to supporting the community.

“The Crew motto has been ‘we take but we also give back,’ so we always do some kind of community service thing,” she said. So as the kids are collecting money, they’ll also be collecting food for the Farmington Food Pantry, which serves needy families in town. Last year, Cirilli said, the rowers collected about 1,500 pounds of food.

During this weekend, the kids go out in pairs with a generous parent, who will drive the kids through Farmington neighborhoods and wait while the kids collect food and sell tickets door to door. You’ll know they’re coming when you see a car with a large yellow duck on the roof.

“We also will be set up [today] down at the Farmington Stop & Shop and we’ll sell ducks down there and collect food for the pantry,” she explained. At the end of the day the kids will meet up at Porter Memorial, which houses the food pantry, for a pizza party and to help stock the shelves.

Cirilli said the rowers would be back out the weekends of April 2 and 22 to sell tickets at Stop & Shop and Highland Park Market.

For more information about the Farmington Crew Program visit the website.