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Neighbors | Jessica Harker .Jack Zink carved one of many pumpkins to be put on display at the annual Pumpkin Walk event hosted by Mill Creek Park on Oct. 14.
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Neighbors | Jessica Harker .Christina Montgomery carved a pumpkin at the service building at Fellows Riverside Garden Oct. 12 to go on display for the annual Pumpkin Walk event.
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Neighbors | Jessica Harker .Christina Montgomery chose an outline to use to carve her pumpkin for the Mill Creek Parks annual pumpkin carving event where community members design pumkins to go on display Oct. 14 for the Pumpkin Walk event.
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Neighbors | Jessica Harker .Groups of community members cycled through the service building at Mill Creek Park for three days carving pumpkins in preperation for the annual Pumpkin Walk event.
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Neighbors | Jessica Harker .A group of pumpkins carved by the Zink family were on display at the Service Building Oct. 12 for the annual Pumpkin Walk event held at Fellows Riverside Garden.
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Neighbors | Jessica Harker .Volunteers pre-gutted around 1,000 pumpkins for community members to carve at Mill Creek Park's annual Pumpkin Carving event.
By JESSICA HARKER
Mill Creek MetroParks hosted their annual pumpkin carving and pumpkin walk events.
Fellows Riverside Garden offered free pumpkin carving at the service station Oct. 11-13.
Rob Chismar, the Garden Supervisor at Fellows Riverside Garden said that the event is a great way for everyone to participate in the annual pumpkin walk.
“Its just a really nice family event,” Chismar said.
He explained that every year the park gets pumpkins from Less and Less farms in Canfield.
This year they have around 13 thousand pounds of pumpkins, or about 1,000 individual pumpkins to carve.
“We will get about 800-1,000 people to carve pumpkins,” Chismar said.
Park employees and volunteers preemptively gut the pumpkins so that anyone who is interested can come in and simply carve them.
The park provides carving tools as well as stencils for the public to use.
“The beauty of our whole event is that you don’t have to gut the pumpkin,” Chismar said. “We have done the difficult part for everyone all they have to do is come here and sign in.”
All the pumpkins that are carved by community members were on display at the annual pumpkin walk Oct. 14.
Here pumpkins are lined up around Fellows Riverside Garden’s walk ways where community members could go on a self guided tour to see all their work.
“It takes a small army of volunteers to help us,” Chismar said. “Its fun but its crazy, it comes with the territory, but we enjoy it here.”
Kravitz Deli sold refreshments during the event, giving away apples and apple cider for free with cookies and other treats available for a fee.
The MetroParks also provided entertainment by musician Steve Free, who played in the gazebo throughout the night.
Chismar said that different civic organizations were also present at the event.
“Its just a nice event, folks really like it and its always really popular,” Chismar said.
For more information about upcoming MetroParks events, go to www.millcreekmetroparks.org.