When Pumpkins Fly

That Crazy Pumpkin Festival


One again Keene, NH closed down its streets and lined them with thousands of pumpkins!

Unfortunately, the festival fell short of it’s goal of breaking the jack-o-lantern world record - but received more local volunteers than ever before, leading this years Pumpkin Festival to a great start.

Festival organized teamed up with Keene State college this year in order to gain more local support. They worked together to set up a clean up challenge to end the festival.

Most teams consisted of Keene State Students from fraternities and other campus organizations. 12 teams were made with each being able to have up to 25 members.

All teams were told to select a charity that they would win up to $1,000 for by being the wining team. All clean up teams would be given $100 for their charity regardless. These winnings have been donated by local businesses in the downtown Keene area.

However, not all went according to plan when pumpkins starting flying into dumpsters. Teams were all assigned a section of pumpkins to clear, but because of the massive turn out of jack-o-lanterns, dumpsters quickly filled up and left teams at a standstill.

Teams were left standing around frustrated while they waited to be assigned a new dumpster. In the end, teams were asked to walk the pumpkins down to dumpsters located at the end of Main St.

Because of this, no winner could be determined and compensation for the teams is still being debated.