Jacksonville celebrates sixth annual Pumpkin Festival

By Gary Scott on October 21, 2016 at 7:02am

There’s something for everyone at Jacksonville’s sixth annual Pumpkin Festival on Saturday.

Plenty of activities for both kids and adults have been organized for the day. Kristen Jenkins of the Jacksonville Main Street organization, which coordinates the event each year, covered the day’s activities on WLDS’ “What’s On Your Mind?” program earlier this week.

For the amount of events and contests going on, Jenkins feels you won’t find a better value than the Jacksonville Pumpkin Festival.

“You get your lunch, you get the rides, you get the entertainment, you get dessert, you get everything for five dollars. You’re going to walk away with a pumpkin and a happy kid with a full belly for five bucks. You simply can’t beat it, it’s an amazing deal with so much fun,” says Jenkins.

Returning this year is the Pumpkin Drop starting at 2 p.m. Jenkins expands on what the contest entails.

“We’re doing the Pumpkin Drop again this year, so with your five-dollar armband you get a pass for that. We will actually be throwing pumpkins off the top of the Sears building, which, if anyone’s familiar with that that’s on the north side of the square, it’s the big huge brown building when you come up on South Main. It’s a three-story building that we’re going to be throwing pumpkins off of, and if the pumpkin stem lands where you have placed your numbered golf tee, then you win a dozen donuts from SafeCo Donuts,” Jenkins explains.

From 11 to 3, visitors can enjoy carnival rides compliments of First Christian Church.

The Pumpkin Festival takes place this Saturday on the downtown square, starting with the United Zombie 5K at 10 a.m. Activities wrap up with the Haunted Jacksonville Bus Tour at 7 p.m.