Jesse Lee's Homemade Pumpkin Patch Opens on Saturday!

Museum-in-the-Street Exhibit, Pumpkin Patch and Decoration Stations Open October 17-18 and 24-25

Jesse Lee Church is creating its first-ever Homemade Pumpkin Patch. About 500 pumpkins have been planted in the patch and are ready to go on sale at 10AM on October 17.

There are 450 more pumpkins waiting in the wings to replenish our supply until every one of the plywood pumpkins are sold over the next two weekends to help raise money for COVID relief for the Navajo Nation. People can also support this cause by texting ‘GIVE’ to 203-349-6853 and select “Navajo Donations” to contribute.

“For nearly 30 years, one of Jesse Lee Church’s biggest, and most popular, annual fundraisers is our pumpkin patch full of gorgeous gourds grown by our Navajo mission partners,” explained Rev. Dr. Bill Pfohl, Jesse Lee’s senior pastor. “This year, we had to cancel our pumpkin order because we unload our pumpkins off the truck one at a time, passing them from one volunteer to another and there’s no way to do that and maintain CDC social distancing requirements. Despite this obstacle, we were determined to raise money for COVID relief for the hard-hit Navajo Nation so we made 950 homemade plywood pumpkins to sell in our patch this year.”

There will be decoration stations available in the patch on a first-come, first-served basis where these homemade pumpkins can be transformed into works of art with colorful paint and Sharpie markers, glitter, glue and unlimited imaginations. People can also take their pumpkins home to decorate if they prefer and bring them back to enter the Best Pumpkin Contest. Our celebrity judges, popular i95FM morning drive DJs, Ethan Carey and Lou Milano, will pick the best-painted pumpkin in the patch on October 25 at 3PM. We also have some artisanal pumpkins created by local artists that will be auctioned off after the Best Pumpkin Contest

In addition to raising money for the Navajo Nation, we also want to raise awareness of their history and the impact COVID has had on them, and all indigenous people, through our Museum-in-the-Street exhibit on the edge of the patch.

“We created our homemade pumpkin patch to give Ridgefielders a safe way to enjoy this time-honored Fall tradition while simultaneously raising awareness of the challenges faced by the Navajo Nation, and helping them battle the coronavirus,” said Pfohl.

To keep everyone safe in the pumpkin patch, we ask people to wear masks and maintain safe social distancing. Decoration stations can be enjoyed by groups who all live in the same house. Each station will be cleaned and sanitized between groups.

Small pumpkins cost $10, mediums are $20 and large ones are $30. There is no charge for using the decoration stations.

All are welcome to come to the Jesse Lee Church Pumpkin Patch at Main Street and King Lane in Ridgefield CT on October 17, 18, 24 & 25 from 10AM-5PM. All proceeds from this fundraiser go to Navajo COVID relief.


FAST FACTS ABOUT JESSE LEE CHURCH AND OUR SUPPORT OF THE NAVAJO NATION

• Jesse Lee Church has sold pumpkins as a fundraiser for the Navajo Nation for nearly 30 years. The church buys its pumpkins from a farm in Farmington, New Mexico on two square miles of land leased from the Navajo Nation reservation. Harvesting and transporting the pumpkins grown on this farm provides 700 jobs during September and October, and a handful of jobs year-round for members of the Navajo Nation.
• Normally, Jesse Lee volunteers unload the trucks full of pumpkins bucket-brigade style, passing the pumpkins from one person to another until the field is full and the truck is empty. There is no way to safely unload the trucks and adhere to CDC social distancing guidelines so it looked like the Jesse Lee Pumpkin Patch would have to be canceled this year.
• Dedicated members of Jesse Lee didn’t want to let our Navajo mission partners down when they need help the most so they made 950 ‘homemade’ gourds from plywood pumpkin cutouts, painted orange, attached to wooden stakes and “planted” where the pumpkin patch is set up every year at the corner of King Lane and Main Street in Ridgefield, CT.
• On the weekends of October 17-18 and 24-25, people can purchase these ‘homemade’ pumpkins ($10 for a small one, $20 for a medium pumpkin and $30 for a large one) and decorate them onsite at decorating stations in the Jesse Lee pumpkin patch or they can decorate them at home.
• People can enter their pumpkin to compete in the “Best Decorated Pumpkin Contest,” (no additional charge) and replant their work of art in the section of the patch reserved for contestants.
o The best pumpkin will be selected on Sunday, October 25th at 3:00 p.m. by i95FM DJs, Ethan Carey and Lou Milano. They will also auction off some artisanal pumpkins painted by local artists to help raise money for the Navajo Nation.
• Jesse Lee is also posting a ‘museum-in-the-streets’ exhibit along Main Street in front of the Jesse Lee Pumpkin Patch to raise awareness of the Navajo Nation, their proud history, our long mission relationship with them and the impact COVID-19 has had on the Native American community.
• Proceeds from pumpkin sales at the Jesse Lee ‘Homemade’ Pumpkin Patch will be donated Navajo Nation COVID relief. People can also donate to this cause by texting ‘GIVE’ to 203/349-6853 and selection ‘Navajo Donations’

FAST FACTS ABOUT THE NAVAJO NATION

• The Navajo Nation is the largest reservation in the United States encompassing 27,500 square miles (roughly the size of West Virginia) and 173,667 call the reservation home.

o Unemployment hovers around 50 percent in the Navajo Nation and that median income is less than $13,000/annually.
o Roughly 30-40 percent of people on the reservation do not have electricity or running water
• Indigenous peoples have been particularly hard-hit by COVID-19 for a variety of reasons:
o Multiple generations live together. When one gets it, the others do too.
o Lack of running water makes hand-washing protocols difficult to adhere to
o Without electricity, people are forced to make frequent trips to one of the 13 stores that serve 180,000 people on the reservation. The stores are packed and, despite efforts to wear masks and maintain social distance, it is hard to protect oneself from the virus.
o Living without refrigeration in a food desert like this results in many people eating packaged or processed food depleted of any real nutritional value. This increases the prevalence of diabetes, heart and respiratory diseases. There are also high rates of cancer caused by exposure to 523 abandoned uranium mines that leach toxic chemicals into the groundwater. These things make the people in the Navajo Nation particularly vulnerable to COVID.
• The healthcare system for the Navajo Nation is woefully inadequate with only 12 healthcare facilities with a combined total of 200 hospital beds. That is one-third the national average of care resources. The Navajo healthcare system is overwhelmed with cases.

 

Jesse Lee Pumpkin Patch

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Submitted by Ridgefield, CT

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