The United Way of Summit County kicked off its 2012 campaign with a big cornhole tournament.

The event at Akron's Lock 3 on Wednesday could break a world record for competitors in the bean bag toss game - with as many as 128 teams of two taking part.

Michael Gaffney with the United Way says it was a good way to call attention to this year's campaign, and to get hundreds involved in a fun event.

"We started talking about what's a game that people like to play that's easy, that anybody can play...you can stand there, and anybody can toss a bag 27 feet," Gaffney explains to AkronNewsNow. "We thought this is the most inclusive kind of event we could have."

Gaffney says that they're trying to break a world record with the cornhole competition.

"We reached out the folks from the Guinness Book of World Records, and found out the largest number of people ever competing in the same cornhole tournament was 250 people," Gaffney says. "So that was only 125 teams, and it seemed to us that we could do that."

Some of the players had a strategy...like Chuck Scrattish of FirstMerit.

"(You) definitely want to land the bag in front of the hole in the hopes that it slides in," Scrattish explains.

Mary Dunn of Giant Eagle was asked if her cornhole strategy was to just throw the bean bag.

"That is my strategy," she confirmed, "I just throw and hope...for...to get it in the hole, I guess."

Celebrity participants included Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic, who said Summit County Executive Russ Pry was one of the "biggest" cornhole players...but Pry was modest.

"I am not an expert, I'm just a poor kid from Mogadore," Pry sparred verbally with Plusquellic.

"No, I said 'biggest', I didn't say 'best', I said 'biggest'," Plusquellic interjected.

"I'm just here to pick on and beat up a kid from Kenmore, a kid from Mogadore," Pry responded.

This year's United Way of Summit County campaign has a goal of $11.6 million.

Gaffney with the United Way of Summit County tells AkronNewsNow that they are already heading towards the 2012 campaign's goal.

"We're well on our way, we've got a lot of our Pacesetter campaigns going on," Gaffney says, "and we're over a million dollars into that already, so we're very excited about the progress we're going to see this year."

Rubber City Radio Group, which owns 1590 WAKR, 97.5 WONE, 94.9 WQMX, 107.3 WNWV and this website, AkronNewsNow.com, is a co-sponsor in this year's United Way campaign.