Pumpkins for the Planet 2024 was a smashing success!

Pumpkins for the Planets (Ottawa South) 2024 was our biggest year so far. We…

• Collected over 2000 lbs of food-grade pumpkins for local organizations

• Held a well-attended Pumpkin Fun Day made possible by a grant from the Awesome Foundation. Thanks as well to Section 34 Firefigthers, Capital Ghostbusters, and Andrew Fleck for providing activites.

• Enhanced Pumpkin Alley with art from Brookfield High School (thanks to teacher Susanna Donato), sculptures from the Green Team at Holy Cross Elementary School (led by to Sonia Rankin), and a labyrinth was made by local resident and OSEAN volunteer Heather Smith and her son, Liam Desilets.

We are only as successful as our volunteers and the local businesses that are helping us move pumpkins!

It is always a pleasure to work with Foodsharing Ottawa, Riverside Park Community Association - RPCA and Uplands Community Council

A huge thank you to the following local businesses for their support in 2024:

• 1-800-GOT-JUNK? for contributing three trucks and drivers to bring our pumpkins to their final homes on farms

• Local Gardening Services, Rewild and Gaia Organic Seeds for contributing a moving truck and driver to shuttle pumpkins to Pumpkin Alley

We are so happy to help the following organizations battle food insecurity with powerhouse pumpkins

• Lionhearts Inc

• Debra Dynes Family House

• The Ottawa Mission

• St-Isidore Marché Full Bellies Market

• Orléans-Cumberland CRC

• CRC Rideau-Rockcliffe CRC

• The Carleton Food Collective

• Caldwell Family Centre

We are glad our pumpkins are going to help fill the bellies and supplement the soil of these farms!

• Quillow Farm

• Sweet William Farms

• Stanley's Olde Maple Lane Farm

• Madahoki Farm

• Tracey Thompson