Collegiettes, when you think of Halloween, what do you think of? “Trick-or-treat”? Candies? Ghosts? Pumpkins? The norm?
But if you asked a student at Wake Forest, they would probably tell you another answer, “PROJECT PUMPKIN!”
As a Wake Forest tradition and one of the biggest service events on campus, Project Pumpkin started in 1988 and will celebrate its 26th anniversary this year on October 29th. Project Pumpkin is a day that brings Wake Forest and the Winston-Salem community together. On that day, more than 1,000 kids will come to Wake Forest and students and faculty will provide them with a safe environment for trick-or-treating and carnival games. Each student organization at Wake can set up a booth on the quad in front of Wait Chapel. These booths have different games the kids can play to win prizes.
This is the fourth year Dianne Uwayo has participated in Project Pumpkin. This year, she will participate as the “Head Pumpkin.” Dianne, together with her Project Pumpkin team — which consists of 7 leaders and 30 co-chairs — has been working on the preparation of this year’s event since April. The team has worked very hard to plan for the event and invite children to come. Dianne believes that this is a great experience not only for the kids, but also for the students at Wake Forest because it is a way for students to get in touch with the community around them. She said that through Project Pumpkin, “Students will interact with the people outside Wake and know that Wake is not everything, and there’s a city just around us.”
When asked about her most unforgettable memory associated with Project Pumpkin, Dianne told us that it is “when the kids came to the upper quad that day and found the decorations they made were actually used to decorate the quad. And those decorations were made when we came to their school a week before to make them excited. In that way, the kids feel that they were also involved in the event preparation.”
Students at Wake Forest are already so excited about the upcoming Project Pumpkin this year and lots of them will be volunteering at the event. It will be a great pleasure to see the campus decorated in Halloween decorations as the Wake Forest community works together to provide kids the best Halloween ever! Can’t wait for October 29th!
*All photography by Dianne Uwayo.