Each October, over 1,000 kids from the Winston-Salem community pour onto campus for Project Pumpkin festivities: an afternoon of trick-or-treating, games and hanging out with Wake students on the upper quad.
Who’s the guy behind this year’s Project Pumpkin? Meet Campus Celebrity Blake Harrison, Project Pumpkin chairman – less officially known as Mister Pumpkin.
Blake (a senior) first heard about the campus-wide philanthropy event from his sister, a Wake Forest alumna. Since he volunteered with children in high school, the event immediately appealed to him. “I liked the kid aspect of it – bringing kids onto campus for a safe trick-or-treating environment was really interesting,” Blake said.
In his first semester at Wake, Blake joined the Project Pumpkin fundraising committee. He stayed involved with the event each year and went on to hold leadership positions. Now as chairman, Blake oversees all of the committees and planning – it’s his job to make sure Project Pumpkin goes off without a hitch. “I’m texting people every single day, ‘Has this gotten done, did you remember to do this?’ I’m just the person in the back of everyone’s mind making sure things are getting done,” Blake said.
While planning for this semester’s Project Pumpkin began last spring, the eight weeks leading up to the event are the craziest of all. Schools have to be contacted, transportation arranged, and candy purchased. Currently Project Pumpkin committees are in overdrive: the event is on this Wednesday, Oct. 30. Right before my meeting with Blake, he had to run off to the grocery store for yet another load of candy (you can never have too much candy).
So why should you volunteer for Project Pumpkin? In the words of Mister Pumpkin: “It’s the largest philanthropy event on campus and a lot of campus-wide events don’t encompass the community at large. It’s a good opportunity just to see what’s outside of Wake Forest and get a deeper connection to people in the Winston-Salem area.”
Oh and did we mention, kids, candy and costumes?!
To find out more about Project Pumpkin, visit its Facebook page or website.