Bringing Fall to Hallettsville

If you’re looking for a nice place to visit and bring your children to enjoy the wonders of the Fall season, the place to come is the Hallettsville First United Methodist Church Pumpkin Patch.

An idea that was started last year, church members found the Pumpkin Patch to be successful and as well as a  lot of fun for all who visited it.

According to Brenda Hull, who co-coordinates the Field Trip project along with Beverly Nance, the Pumpkin Patch is an outreach of the church with the intent to bring Fall to Hallettsville.

 “We bring ‘Fall’ to Hallettsville, which is free to the public,” Hull said. “We also offer field trips to area schools free of charge.”

Hull said schools hold field trips to the Patch on Tuesday and Thursday mornings that offer mini lessons for Pre-K through second grade students. 

“Typically the lessons involve stories and crafts as well as reviewing how pumpkins grow,” Hull said. “We measure and weigh pumpkins and walk through the patch to explore the many varieties.” 

In addition, Hull said there are fun activities that include spider blowing races, bowling, ring toss, pumpkin toss, tic tac toe and corn bins for exploration. She said  these activities are available for field trips only.  

Area schools are taking advantage of the offer with the Patch limiting the visits to 50 students per field trip.

Hull said they have four Hallettsville Elementary School trips scheduled as well as two groups from Sacred Heart Catholic School and two groups from Ezzell ISD at the time of this article. 

“As retired elementary teachers, Bev and I read and try to do the lessons,” Hull said. “We also have a host of volunteers that enjoy supervising the games and assisting with the crafts.” 

First United Methodist Church pastor, Patrick Melton, said the Pumpkin Patch has an assortment of decorations set up for photo opportunities and have included new pumpkin “animals” at this year’s Patch that are formed from various sizes of the pumpkins. 

Melton said the patch is manned by volunteers from the church and is open to non-Methodists who would be willing to volunteer as well.

In addition, Melton said they will also sign off for high school students from school organizations who are looking for volunteer service hours.

“The volunteers running the Patch each day are excited about being the hands and feet of Christ to our community,” Melton said. “Community outreach and fun really is the purpose behind the Patch.”

Melton said in addition to  enjoying what the Patch has to offer, the public can purchase pumpkins as well.

“Besides fun for the children, the Patch offers  stickers for the children and is a wonderful place for the adults to come out for awhile and talk with some really cool people,” Melton said. “We enjoy that tool.”

Regarding the pumpkins at the Patch, they were delivered on Friday, Sept. 29 and the church put out a Facebook post asking for volunteers to help unload them starting at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning, Sept. 30.

First United Methodist Church treasurer Christi Wheelock said the turnout to help unload the pumpkins was amazing with a large number of volunteers, including high school football players, who played their games on Friday night, showing up to help out.  

Wheelock said they had over 3,500 pumpkins delivered ranging from large to smaller ones.

The pumpkins are available for purchase by the public and the prices range according to the size of the pumpkins.

Wheelock said the sale of the pumpkins benefit the HFUMC youth missions projects.