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 Will Rivera, Cynthia Rodriguez, Miguel Aponte, and Felix Colon-Pacheco were among the students toting and carving pumpkins at the Worcester Ecotarium. |
On October 17 Youthbuild students and staff went to the
Ecotarium to carve pumpkins and help prepare for the annual Great Pumpkin Fest
held on October 25. The event is an area family favorite with free hayrides,
train rides, games, animal encounters, kids' costume parades, crafts, puppets, pumpkin-carving
demonstrations, Halloween story times, face painting, a magician, a fortune
teller and digital planetarium show. The lit pumpkins are placed all around the
grounds on hay bales. Music is provided by area radio stations. Before they set to carving, they moved pumpkins from large
bins, sorting those that were starting to spoil and putting useable pumpkins on
tables for pickup. Thirty area groups came to get pumpkins to carve at their
locations and return to the Ecotarium for the Pumpkin Fest. The students helped
people put pumpkins in their cars. In all they sorted and moved 1500 pumpkins. Through the day you could hear Betsy Maloney, Ecotarium
Volunteer Coordinator call out to the students, “I need help loading 25 (or
however many) pumpkins and I need a counter.” Off the students and staff would go to tote
pumpkins of all sizes to waiting cars. The highest number of pumpkins taken by
one group was 110. “YouthBuild was such a huge help. Their attitude was great;
they were so cheerful. They’ve done really well. They have so much energy. We
are so happy they came,” said Maloney. Students and staff each carved a pumpkin. Once carved, the exposed
pumpkin surfaces were coated with Vaseline to preserve them. The Ecotarium gave a free pass to the event to all who
carved pumpkins. When the students finished carving they were treated to a
train ride around the museum grounds. They returned on the Monday after the event to help with
clean-up. This was the second trip for the students this month. On
October 10 they enjoyed two hours of bowling at the AMF lanes in |
