Pumpkin Patches: Fun Fall Fundraisers!
Calling all schools, churches and community groups - pumpkin patches are fun and can be highly profitable fundraisers. Whether you're planning a one-weekend event or a month-long pumpkin festival, well-organized volunteers are a key success-ingredient and VolunteerSpot's free online sign up sheets makes it easy coordinate the help you need quickly and easily!
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Simple steps for pumpkin patch fundraiser success:
1. Find a pumpkin supplier. Try and stay local, call farms within a few hours radius and talk to your grocery store managers. Nothing close by? That’s ok, many suppliers deliver! Below is a list of major vendors to help you get started.
2. Find a location for your pumpkin patch with high visibility and ample parking. The size will vary depending on the size of the organization your fundraising for, but good places to start are parking lots in busy areas, church lawns, or a school yard. Check out the competition too; look to start your new pumpkin patch in a well-traficed area far from other sales.
3. Promote your pumpkin patch with clever signs, flyers, and notices on websites such as Craigslist, and school, church and local family newspapers and publications.
4. Plan for volunteers to help with all aspects of the pumpkin patch fundraiser such as site prep, unloading, promoting the sale (see #3 above), pumpkin sales, additional entertainment options, concessions, and site cleanup. Hint: VolunteerSpot's free online volunteer scheduler and automated reminders make coordinating volunteers a breeze.
"For each of the past 13 years, our church sells pumpkins and hosts a fall festival. We need about 600 volunteer slots and unload 3 semi-trailers of pumpkins! What's amazing is with VolunteerSpot we have about 75% of our volunteer slots covered, and we haven't even unloaded our first truck of pumpkins! This has never happened before." ~ Brian B, Austin TX
That’s all there really is to it, but if you want to make even more money and enhance the experience, try some of these great additions:
- Trick Out your Pumpkin Patch. Make the location itself stand out with lights, Fall/Halloween décor, music and large visible signs.
- Add More Revenue Opportunities! Once you have visitors on site, find more ways for them to spend money during your fundraiser. Try adding a face painting station, a petting zoo, a photo area with hay bales for the backdrop, pumpkin carving services, a corn or hay bale maze, a fresh-farm produce stand, or even have a side booth hosting a bake sale or other concessions.
- Picking the right day and time is also very important! Make sure to check your local weather so it’s not too cold, and do it at a time when people are usually outside like Friday after school or on Saturday.
- Partner with a large event to build buzz and traffic. Hold your pumpkin patch along with or near another large event like a school carnival, parish festival or community concert or race.
Here are a few pumpkin distributors to get you started. For a more detailed list, visit here.
- Gerry Lynn Industries Ltd. -They sell bulk pumpkins nationally. Gerry's Email: [email protected].
- Garner Ranch Pumpkin Patch - W. Coast: Email: [email protected]
Have an awesome pumpkin patch this Fall and year-after-year!!
