World Record for Lit Pumpkins

[Proco]

My wife & I had the good fortune to be in Boston this past weekend to be volunteers for the Life is Good Pumpkin Festival on Boston Common. The festival is done to benefit Camp Sunshine in Casco, Maine. Camp Sunshine is a retreat for families of children with life-threatening illnesses. In addition to trying to raise money, there was a goal to break the world record for most lit pumpkins in one place. Breaking the record would be used to give Camp Sunshine more exposure.

From Life is Good's Pumpkin Festival site:

A Guinness World Record was triumphantly smashed at the Life is good Pumpkin Festival on Saturday, as 30,128 carved pumpkins lit up our nation’s oldest public park, the Boston Common. Over 100,000 people came out to enjoy the old fashioned fun, simple food, live music and spectacular sights on a picture perfect autumn day.

While the world record is a proud new feather in Boston’s cap, the ultimate goal of Life is good Festivals is to raise funds and awareness for children’s charities, and Saturday’s Fest smashed another record by raising $271,027 for Camp Sunshine, the nationally acclaimed retreat for families of children with life-threatening illnesses.[/b]

I just wanted to thank the great people of Boston for their hospitality & for turning out in huge numbers for this event. I worked an information booth and got to meet lots of people who wanted to carve or were bringing pumpkins to be carved or already carved ones. Everyone was very eager to be a part of it. It was very humbling to be a small part of the event.

Some pictures from Life is Good's site:

[dragonfly]

How fun! I hope they didn't just throw away all the yummy seeds.

[Proco]

I don't know what they did with the seeds. Maybe they gave them to a homeless shelter for squirrels.

[Cheap!]

I Wish I was part of that. I very happy it went to such a good cause.

Was it followed by a Pie Eating contest?

[eagle33199]

Great cause, definitely. I've spent at least a little bit of time every year for the past 5 years helping to raise money for a similar camp, called Boggy Creek, in Florida. They're part of the Hole in the Wall camps (http://www.holeinthewallcamps.org/htwc/index/hq_camps), which are "the world's largest family of camps for children with serious illnesses and life threatening conditions." Anyways, there's nothing better than helping out with projects like this, and its always good to hear about other camps serving the same goal as Boggy.

[eclectcmoi]

GREAT pics! Thanks for sharing!

[Proco]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Cheap! @ Oct 25 2006, 02:47 PM) [snapback]338132[/snapback]</div>

I Wish I was part of that. I very happy it went to such a good cause.

Was it followed by a Pie Eating contest?
[/b]

Well, there was an impromptu pie eating contest during the event. The table at our information booth was unceremoniously commandeered for the event.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eclectcmoi @ Oct 25 2006, 05:11 PM) [snapback]338252[/snapback]</div>

GREAT pics! Thanks for sharing!
[/b]

I'm glad you liked them. I wish I could take credit for them, though. They were taken by the "photo team" at the event. I took some of my own, of course. But I don't have a digital camera, so I have to wait for my pictures to come back. I'll scan some and post them if they're any good.

[Proco]

Finally got my pictures back from the event and scanned in a few. They can all be found here: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/michaelprocopi...460762333105010

Here's a couple of them:
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