Pumpkins finally have come to patch
Stars of an Edmond church’s annual fall event arrive at last after trucker shortage
The sign on the church sign said “The Pumpkins are Coming.”
Leaders at Southern Hills Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) just didn’t know when.
Myrna Ranney, a church elder, said the Edmond house of worship’s annual pumpkin patch fundraiser would have been up and running already but the fall favorite got caught in a nationwide COVID-19-related trucker shortage.
By the time a large load of pumpkins finally arrived on Monday and no one was happier than Ranney, who knew the surrounding community had expected to see a
familiar sea of orange on the church’s lawn a little earlier.
“They’ve been calling and saying ‘Aren’t you all going to have pumpkins?’” she said. “We have a lot of folks who have history with our pumpkin patch because it’s been well over 20 years since we’ve been doing this.”
Although most other retailers said they have been loaded with pumpkins for a while, the pumpkin arrival at Southern Hills, 3207 S Blvd., was considered late by previous years’ standards. Ranney said the pumpkins were just over a week late because they typically arrived in the latter part of September in previous years.
Before the global pandemic, the unloading of the pumpkins was a churchwide event. The congregation — ranging from the young to the older members — enjoyed making two assembly lines and passing the pumpkins from the truck to the church lawn. That was all pre-COVID-19. Monday, church member Kurt Sampley and a few other men unloaded the pumpkins and several volunteers were expected to help spread the pumpkins and other gourds on the lawn so they could be sold beginning Tuesday.
No rough patch
Sampley said the church’s pumpkin supplier, a Navaho reservation in Farmington, New Mexico, couldn’t immediately find a truck driver to haul the pumpkins to their final destination in Oklahoma.
Ranney said the pumpkins are not your ordinary pumpkins because they are part of the church’s mission efforts.
“By buying our pumpkins from the Navaho, we are helping support that community. Plus the proceeds, what we make, are divided to help our weekend breakfast meal ministry on Saturday and Sunday, our children and youth ministries, Oklahoma Central Christian Camp and a small portion goes to pay for overhead for our men’s fellowship.”
Several other retailers and nonprofits said they had not experienced any delays in getting pumpkins, although one local organization said they couldn’t find any hay bales to sell in their popular pumpkin patch.
Marni Sigmon, development officer at Wings, a special-needs community at 13700 N Eastern, said the nonprofit had no problem getting pumpkins including specialty pumpkins and gourds, but they had to make special efforts to find hay bales because they couldn’t find an available distributor. She said they had plenty of pumpkins and other items for their annual Wings Fall Festival and Pumpkin Patch fundraiser.
Kaitlin Kendel at McFarlin Memorial United Methodist Church in Norman said her church’s expected load of pumpkins was delayed but only by a few hours. She said the delay could have been due to weather but she wasn’t sure. Either way, the pumpkin patch at the church, 419 S University Blvd., is now open for business with lots of pumpkins for sale.
Several local managers at large retailers like Lowe’s and Home Depot said they had no issues receiving pumpkins, likely because of their company’s size and resources.
“Ours come from a national vendor just because they’re sending so many,” said Martin Coppak, manager at the Lowes at 100 SW 74.
Clayton Blish, assistant manager at Home Depot, 6800 W Reno, said much the same. “Home Depot stores, they’re never going to have an issue getting pumpkins to us,” he said.
Darla “Dejo” Titus, who mans the information center at one of the nursery centers for Oklahoma-based Marcum’s Nursery, said her center at 2121 SW 119, recently received two large truck loads of pumpkins and the planned to host fall festivals on Oct. 16, 23, and 30 to give the public opportunities to browse all the different varieties.
Meanwhile, Southern Hills’ pumpkin patch will be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week, beginning on Tuesday through Oct. 31.
Ranney said she expects to see some of the church’s regular pumpkin patch customers in the days ahead.
These include representatives from the Make Promises Happen Camp at Central Christian Camp and Conference Center in Guthrie, which typically purchases pumpkins for campers to decorate. Also, one local mom said she’d been bringing her 14-year-old son to the church pumpkin patch since he was a toddler. “We hear stories from people who have been coming for many years and it’s a fun thing for those of us who work it,” Ranney said.
“They’ve been calling and saying ‘Aren’t you all going to have pumpkins?’ We have a lot of folks who have history with our pumpkin patch because it’s been well over 20 years since we’ve been doing this.”
Myrna Ranney, elder at Southern Hills Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)