This story is sponsored by Parkside Restaurant in Mitchell’s Bay:
From exploding watermelons, to massive pumpkins there will be tons of family fun at the inaugural Pumpkinfest in Wallaceburg on Saturday, Sept. 26.
Eric Hancock, the Wallaceburg Kinsmen president and the event organizer, said the Wallaceburg Kinsmen were approached by the Growers and Throwers organization that their event became too big for them to handle.
“We saw an opportunity to make this into something that would hopefully be an attraction to people in Wallaceburg and surrounding area,” Eric said. “Make it a family day for the whole family, all the way from grandparents to the toddlers and that’s how we structured the whole day.”
Eric said for insurance purposes, they can’t throw pumpkins anymore.
“We are going to have a competition though,” he said. “We are hoping for a pumpkin close to one thousand pounds. At this point we have got 20 pumpkins entered. We’ve got gourds entered and tomatoes, so there will be a number of vegetables that will be on there. We are offering a prize pool of $3,000 to attract competitors.
Eric added: We also have the junior division sunflower growing competition contest. We are going to give awards to children who bring in their sunflowers and it will be based on the diameter of the sunflower. We will be giving them medallions.”
Eric said the competition and the awards will wrap up probably around 4 p.m.
Throughout the day, another attraction is sure to draw some crowds as well.
“We are still working to have a watermelon display, when you see people putting elastics around them and at some point there is so much pressure, it blows up,” he said. “So we are going to do one every hour. We are hoping to get five Kinsmen in and do one an hour and let people come in to see that happen.
There is a ton more going on at Pumpkinfest, have a look at the event poster below:
This article is sponsored content and is a part of our “Keep It Local Business Spotlight” feature. Contact Dana Haggith for more information – 519-784-4610 or dana@sydenhamcurrent.ca.
