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 Auburn.