The Jefferson United Methodist Church transforms its lawn and community with a pumpkin patch that has become a festive fall tradition every October and an important fundraiser for many Baton Rouge residents.
Over 2,000 pumpkins make up the patch, and JUMC puts 100% of the sales proceeds into organizations that support the Baton Rouge community. Some of the organizations they donate to include Brave Heart, Serenity Treatment Center, The Shepherds Market and The Capital Area CASA Association.
The patch has a way of giving back to its customers as well. Adults, teenagers and young children spend time socializing, taking pictures and playing in the patch. Leslie Hyacinth, pastor at JUMC says the pumpkin patch helps bring people together with fall spirit.
“It is a wonderful way to not only raise funds to help folks in our community, but it’s also a way for people to come on our campus,” Hyacinth said. “It just makes one feel good to walk in a patch full of orange. There is something about that that’s really cool and nostalgic.”
Volunteers from the community manage the logistics of the patch from its set up to its sales. A team of decorators adorn the field with hay bales and scarecrows, while a clean up crew removes any rotten or bruised pumpkins from the field.
Jerry Monier, the missions coordinator at JUMC, said that not only do the volunteers help the pumpkin patch prosper, but their teamwork exemplifies the triumph of the fall tradition.
“It’s all the partnerships and collaboration that goes into putting the patch together. I think the success truly is not only the services that we provide, but the success is also the community coming together to support the patch.” Monier said.
The volunteers range from longtime members of the church to local high school students. For some groups, serving at the patch has become its own fall tradition. Each year groups of Parkview Baptist students help at the patch to fulfill their service hour requirements for school.
“It is quite an undertaking,” Hyacinth said. “We have a wonderful group of teenagers who have been coming for years, and they are just really instrumental in helping us do what we do.”
Another consistent group of volunteers comes from the Serenity Treatment Center. These men and women help unload the semi-truck full of pumpkins and arrange them on pallets in the patch. Serenity is a rehabilitation facility dedicated to helping individuals with substance and alcohol addiction. It is also one of the organizations that JUMC uses the patch to raise money and awareness for.
Hyacinth says that meeting these volunteers face to face makes their donation mean much more.
“We’re not just writing checks,” Hyacinth said. “We have personal relationships with the organizations, and I really appreciate that.”
Volunteers are motivated by different reasons to help at the pumpkin patch. Susan Kramer donates her time to JUMC during October, because she loves to watch the children and their families celebrating the fall season.
“They enjoy it so much; they run around and take pictures and they take forever to pick out their pumpkins,” Kramer said. “I’m a retired educator, so I enjoy being around the kids.”
The pumpkin patch attracts many families and their children of all ages. On Sunday, Oct. 20, JUMC hosted a Trunk or Treat celebration in the patch. Participants decorated their cars and passed out candy to kids in halloween costumes. The children rode on hayrides and got their faces painted, while mothers took pictures.
Monier says that seeing young kids have fun and spend time with their families is one of the most meaningful aspects of the pumpkin patch, because they resurface his own memories of past autumns.
“Seeing three or four families with young kids, and I’m talking 2, 3 years old, some younger than that, running through the patch and looking at the pumpkins and seeing the volunteers smile watching this happen, I go back to the memories of my daughters when they were that age running through the patch.”
Young adults also spend time in the patch. The bright orange bulbs and festive hay bales make the perfect background for festive Instagram pictures, and pumpkin shopping is a cozy activity to do with friends.
Haya Sultan, a freshman sociology major at LSU, shopped in the patch for pumpkins to paint at her sister’s birthday party. Sultan said she feels that the pumpkins are a beautiful way to mark the fall season.
“I like having seasonal things to look forward to,” Sultan said. “I just think it’s fun and aesthetic. Especially in Louisiana, since it doesn’t get cold much, it’s nice to have something to feel like fall.”
JUMC offers a variety of pumpkins including the classic orange squash, perfect for a jack-o-lantern. They also have unique gourds, mini pumpkins and white pumpkins. The iconic fall vegetables are all grown by Navajo farmers on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Farmington, New Mexico.
The fundraiser doesn’t just impact Baton Rouge communities. The pumpkins provide jobs for 700 Native Americans during the fall harvesting season, helping reduce unemployment in the region. Hyacinth said the patch’s wide scope of positive influence is one of main reasons customers come to JUMC for their pumpkins each year.
“I would say people in our community are going to buy pumpkins anyway, but they know that these pumpkins make a difference not only for people in our area, but also for the farmers that grow them in New Mexico,” Hyacinth said. “That’s something I know we appreciate and others appreciate too. So although you could go to Target or you could go to Walmart and buy pumpkins, and they might be a little bit cheaper, people come here because they want to give back, and this is a way to do that.”
She said the JUMC pumpkin patch has important social, aesthetic and monetary impacts on the Baton Rouge community and those beyond. Each person that interacts with the patch becomes part of its success story.
“I think success is really in people coming out and having a safe space to bring their families and feeling the love of our volunteers,” she said. “Success is our volunteers doing something outside of their comfort zone, success is raising the funds and success is that they were grown in the first place and provided jobs throughout the year. It’s always successful no matter how much we sell.”
The JUMC pumpkin patch is located at 10328 Jefferson Hwy, and is open Monday through Friday from noon to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
