News Archives

Churches rely on pumpkins for raising funds

10/6/2003 News media contact: Kathy Gilbert · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn.

NOTE: This story is a sidebar to UMNS #479. Photographs are available.

A UMNS Feature By Kathy L. Gilbert*

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Members of Fellowship United Methodist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn., congratulate one another after unloading some 2,000 pumpkins from Pumpkin Patch USA. Church leaders hope to raise $8,000 to $10,000 from sales of their load of 2,000 pumpkins. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. Photo number 03-334, Accompanies UMNS #481, 10/1/03


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Workers load pumpkins destined for church fund-raisers across the country onto tractor trailers at the Pumpkin Patch USA fields in Farmington, N.M. The pumpkins are grown on the Navajo Agricultural Products Industry, the Navajo Nation's farming and agribusiness enterprise, pumping more than $2 million into the local Navajo economy through jobs and land rent permits. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. Photo number 03-335, Accompanies UMNS #481, 10/8/03


LINK: Click to open full size version of image
Lyndsey Collins, 5, helps unload pumpkins from a Pumpkin Patch USA truck at Fellowship United Methodist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Youth leaders at the church hope to raise $8,000 to $10,000 from sales of their load of 2,000 pumpkins. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. Photo number 03-333, Accompanies UMNS #481, 10/6/03


LINK: Click to open full size version of image
Workers pick pumpkins destined for church fund-raisers across the country at the Pumpkin Patch USA fields in Farmington, N.M. The pumpkins are grown on the Navajo Agricultural Products Industry, the Navajo Nation's farming and agribusiness enterprise, pumping more than $2 million into the local Navajo economy through jobs and land rent permits. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. Photo number 03-338, Accompanies UMNS #481, 10/6/03


LINK: Click to open full size version of image
Dogs belonging to a trucker working for Pumpkin Patch USA in Farmington, N.M., peer out the window of the truck while their owner completes paperwork in the scale house. Some 700 truckloads of pumpkins will be shipped to churches across the country for use in fund-raising projects this year. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. Photo number 03-336, Accompanies UMNS #481, 10/6/03
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (UMNS) - Jill Vogle and about 50 of her closest friends are spending a windy Sunday afternoon unloading 2,000 pumpkins from the back of an 18-wheel truck.

Vogle is the senior high youth director at Fellowship United Methodist Church and a new recruit to Pumpkin Patch USA, a company that sends pumpkins to churches to sell for fund-raisers.

"We will be here seven days a week for the entire month of October," she says. "Sunday we're open from noon to 6 p.m., and Monday through Saturday we're here from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m."

The youth group of about 60 will be out in the pumpkin patch every day, working to raise money for their summer mission trips, summer camps and other youth events.

Fellowship's pumpkins were packed on the truck Sept. 25 in Farmington, N.M., and arrived at the church in Murfreesboro around 1:30 p.m. Sept. 28. Fellowship is one of nearly 700 United Methodist churches selling the pumpkins during October.

The pumpkins sell from $2 to $35, with some of the smaller ones going for 50 cents to $1. Congregations keep 25 to 40 percent of the profit, depending on gross sales volume.

"Our goal is to raise anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000," Vogle says. Laughing, she adds, "That's our goal, and that may be a high goal, but that's kind of what we're shooting for right now.

"I've talked to a couple of different churches that say this is a really good fund-raiser for them because not only does it let the youth get more involved in the church, it brings the community in too, and it's just a really good outreach," she says. "… And it's also a big fund-raiser, so we don't have to have constant fund-raisers through the course of the year."
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*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer.

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