Abiba Biao photo
Church volunteer Lois Fucci at the pumpkin patch.
Hamden Plains United Methodist Church has carved out a pumpkin patch on Dixwell Avenue — continuing a seasonal tradition of full-circle fundraising.
This marks the 31st year that the Hamden church near Church Street and Dixwell Avenue has filled its front yard with hundreds of orange squash, taking in donation-based pumpkin proceeds to fund their operating budget, grow community outreach, and support festive neighbors.
Call it the town’s “Pumpkin Church.” At least, that’s how the church refers to itself in an email press release from earlier this month boosting the annual fundraiser.
On a quiet Friday afternoon, 83-year-old volunteer Lois Fucci was overseeing sales — a task that church friends are sharing to keep the pumpkin patch open from noon to 6 p.m. each day through the end of October.
“It’s kind of fun to be here… interesting people come and talk and chat or they ask about the church,” said Fucci, a North Haven resident and retired Gateway Community College professor.
On weekday afternoons, she said she enjoys when children stop by with their parents — or, less frequently, with their classmates and teachers from such neighboring schools as Church Street Elementary. She said that school has made field trips to the patch to take photos.
On occasion, the church’s pastor, Jeremiah Jermaine Paul, also brings his guitar to the patch to sing a song or two. Read here about Paul, a renowned singer who won Season 2 of NBC’s vocal competition The Voice.
The fundraiser helps fund some of the church’s charitable initiatives, including community food security measures like Saturday nights’ “Dinner for a Dollar” and the church’s regular grocery bank.
The pumpkins, of course, can also be consumed. Nancy Estes, the secretary for the church, said customers typically buy the gourds to bake pumpkin pies when they’re not carving jack-o-lanterns. Estes’ favorite recipe is baked pumpkin seeds drenched in salt and olive oil.
The church purchased over 1,000 pumpkins from the Navajo Nation — but unexpectedly ended up with an additional 700.
Estes said that the church typically prices the pumpkins by size, but is allowing the customer to choose how much they pay this year because of that incidental surplus.
“So if you feel that you only want to pay $5 for a pumpkin that’s fine,” Estes said. “If you want to pay a little bit more to help us out and the Navajo Indians, that’s fine too.”
Any unsold or rotten pumpkins are given to local farmers at the end of the fundraiser to turn into animal feed or compost.
Estes had some tips for those looking for their perfect pumpkin, like tapping the sides like a watermelon to check its ripeness. More importantly, she warned: “Never carry them from the stems,” or the pumpkin may fall to a less exciting fate than acting as Halloween decor.
Fucci, meanwhile, shared that when scoping out the right pumpkin, she goes for a “tall squash… it gives me the opportunity to make a pretty face or you know I’ve picked up stickers and I stick on eyes.”
Ultimately, the pumpkin patch is less about pumpkins than about community care.
Fucci recalled one of the biggest sales the church saw a few years back.
“We had a whole bunch of pumpkins left. There were a lot of them. And they just weren’t going and it was close to last day. And a gentleman from the community walked up and said how much can I give you for all these pumpkins? Then he bought the whole lot.”
Pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin soup, roasted pumpkins seeds seasoned with chili powder and salt and pepper, pumpkin filled ravioli, pumpkin bread pudding, the list of yummy stuff you can make with pumpkin is endless….
I hope if there are any leftover pumpkins they get donated to local soup kitchens to be made into food for the hungry.