See that mountain of Pumpkins? It's from Keene, NH, whose yearly pumpkin festival draws tens of thousands of visitors to the town green. The event is recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the largest pumpkin festival in the world.
"To see 30,000 lit pumpkins just takes your breath away," says Lisa Rose of Newtown jewelry shop Bead of Roses. "It's spectacular."
Rose hopes to see something like it take hold in Newtown. For the past two years, she's tried to launch a pumpkin festival here, starting in 2011.
"That was the year Hurricane Irene came in and squashed my pumpkin event," she says. She tried again in 2012, only to run into the same problem with Hurricane Sandy.
Rose, who lives in Monroe, got the idea when she attended Keene State and saw the pumpkins decked out across the town in their full glory. It is, she says, "an extremely magical event," but also helps a number of charities.
For Rose, that was an important aspect. She's talked to family members of Sandy Hook Elementary School victims, and hopes to benefit charities -- including those, like Newtown Kindness and the Chase Kowalski Memorial Fund, Bead of Roses supports with their line of Sandy Hook bracelets.
The festival is still a work in progress, and Rose says she's waiting on one more meeting for final approval before it's officially on for the fall. At present, she says she's planning for October, somewhere on the Fairfield Hills Campus (in a way that doesn't interfere with soccer), and hopes a Newtown pumpkin festival could even challenge Keene's for the world record.
"We want to bring back Halloween in a very magical way," she says.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
