Youngster Karis, 3, and her mom Kim Richardson after winning the contest for the largest pumpkin (top right), and, with Midwest Food Resources, left to right, Yvette Miedema (board vice president), festival planner Hannah Adamcryck and volunteer Jayden Nelson (lower left) at the Pumpkin Festival. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Festival a big success

Midwest Food Resources Pumpkin Festival promotes locally-grown produce

Sep 20, 2022 | 1:13 PM

The Midwest Food Resources’ (MFR) first-ever pumpkin festival turned out to be a big success, with lots of people attending.

The event took place Sunday at the non-profit’s Community Garden, located off Gagne Avenue in North Battleford.

The aim of the festival is to promote fresh, nutritious locally-grown foods in the Battlefords. MFR also offers a Fresh Food Box program throughout the year to help families access healthy produce at an affordable cost.

Executive Director Vesna Fa thanked all the businesses, organizations and volunteers that supported the festival to help make it happen.

“The community stepped up,” she said. “It’s amazing. It was more than I expected to be honest.”

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Colleen Sabraw, of the Battlefords Early Childhood Intervention Program, who was on the festival organizing committee, was among those attending.

“Vesna [Fa] and Midwest Food [Resources] staff and volunteers did an amazing job of pulling this event together,” she said. “I hope it’s an annual event, and more and more programs and services here in the community support [it].”

BGC Battlefords, Kids First and the Battlefords Immigration Resource Centre also were among those taking part, as well as a few vendors.

The event featured kids’ activities in the early part of the day, followed by a beer garden and entertainment into the evening.

The festival included a teepee on the grounds, too, organized with help from an Indigenous Knowledge Keeper.

There were also competitions for the biggest pumpkin, largest zucchini, craziest carrot, ugliest potato, biggest tomato and the wackiest squash.

Youngster Karis Richardson, 3, won the contest for the biggest pumpkin for her entry that came in weighing a hefty 93 pounds.

“We had so much fun all summer watching it grow, teaching her how the plant [develops],” said mom Kim Richardson from the Battlefords area. “All we did was give it water. It was just something fun for her to do.”

People attending also gathered information on such topics as bokashi composting, traditional old-fashioned composting, as well as seed-saving and preserving techniques by gardener Rhea Good, who was selling seeds and wild-crafted jellies.

“There has been quite a lot of interest in seeds,” she said. “Most people today are interested in the giant pumpkin seeds… This is a generation of the Atlantic Giant breed that I’ve just grown in my own garden. I’m a seed-saver so these are all from my own plants from my garden.”

Outside the garden grounds, families at the festival also took part in horse-drawn wagon rides.

Head of the festival volunteer committee, Hannah Adamcryck, was working behind the scenes, organizing all the details over the summer. She was thrilled with the number of people who attended the event.

“It was a really impressive turnout. We weren’t expecting this many people to show up. It over quadrupled the amount,” she said.

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angela.brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW