Boston Pumpkin Festival

Camp Sunshine’s Boston Pumpkin Festival lights 15,000 pumpkins, and over 50,000 smiles!

It was a beautiful fall day at Camp Sunshine’s Boston Pumpkin Festival on October 18th, and we were thrilled with the attendance, participation, and results. Over 50,000 people came out over the course of the crisp fall day, and the event raised tons of awareness and support for Camp Sunshine.

While the 15,000 pumpkins carved and displayed represents half of the 30,128 world record number Camp Sunshine set in Boston in 2006, the numbers don’t matter. Camp Sunshine and Boston still hold the Guinness World Record, but more importantly, this event continues to benefit Camp Sunshine, whether a world record is set or not.

An army of volunteers, young and old from across the northeast, gutted, carved, crated, arranged and lit pumpkins throughout the day and into the evening, filling every nook and corner of Boston’s City Hall Plaza with orange. Adding to the spectacular display was a 40-foot-tall scaffolding tower filled with jack-o-lanterns and glow heart pumpkins (tower built by Lanco Scaffolding).

Adding to the fun at the event was a jumbo whoopie pie eating contest, which pitted ten contestants against each other to see who could eat the most in a five minute time span. These pies were the size of a cake. When the start was announced, contestants dove into the jumbo pies head first. It looked like Camp Sunshine Business Manager Rob Butcher was going to take home the victory, but a close review by the judges ended with victory going to a random person pulled from the crowd to participate at the last minute.

At the end of the day, after all the pumpkins were carved, whoopie pies were eaten, and fun was had, the final pumpkin count was tallied and displayed on the “scoregourd”. The pumpkins were then hauled away to be composted.

Market Basket supermarkets served as the lead sponsor of the event. In addition to Market Basket, we would also like to thank Lisa Menino and our friends at City Hall Plaza for their fine and generous support, and the Camp Sunshine staff and volunteers who worked tirelessly to make this event a success. Thanks also to Village Candle, Renys, New Penn Trucking and Premier Trailer Leasing, radio 92.9 and Fox 25, and all of our other sponsors for helping us make this event a success. For a complete list of sponsors, please visit our sponsors page.