Bolton farm pays tribute to first responders, healthcare workers with corn maze design

BOLTON, Mass. — Eric Schartner built it. Now, he hopes they will come.

“It’s about 800 feet long and a little over 300 feet wide,” Schartner said.

Schartner is the manager at Scharnter Farm in Bolton which has been a family-run business for the past 118 years.

This year, the farm is paying tribute to first responders and healthcare workers with a giant 5-acre maze.

Underneath the words “Thank You,” there are symbols representing EMS, police, fire, doctors, and nurses.

“You can never compensate them enough, there’s never enough thank you’s, just the show of support I think really helps,” Schartner said.

This is the farm’s 11th design. One of their most popular designs was the G.O.A.T maze designed to honor Tom Brady in 2018.

It showed TB12 about to throw a pass, next to “G.O.A.T.” along with a Super Bowl trophy.

To create these masterpieces the farm uses a company that specializes in designing and cutting corn mazes.

It took the company about two-and-a-half hours to complete this year’s tribute.

“When we get done planting the maze it’s like a piece of graph paper.

They have their sheets and work their way out and tells them which boxes to go, where to go and they paint out the lines.

As soon as they paint the lines they go back and take out the corn that’s in the rows,” Schartner said.

This year’s theme hits close to home for Schartner.

The 4th-generation farmer said paying tribute to all those on the front lines fighting COVID-19 was the least he could do.

“We have a lot of family members that are front line members. But the biggest thing is, obviously, it’s friends, neighbors, and relatives. I mean you name it, it affects us all,” he said.

The farm opens for the season on September 19th, which is two weeks later than normal. Due to COVID-19, they wanted a little more time to prepare.

First responders and healthcare workers will be admitted into the maze for free.

Cox Media Group