This was the first year the Pumpkin Festival hosted trick-or-treaters in the garden since the festival was on Halloween. Children dressed as princesses, superheroes and witches were able to enjoy the pumpkin-inspired activities with Elon students and staff. 

Michael Strickland, assistant teaching professor of English and environmental studies, teaches the Garden Studio Class that supports and works on the Elon Community Garden. In addition to preparing for the annual festival this year, his student also planted a variety of vegetables like kale, broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens and peppers. 

Strickland started the festival as a way to get the outside Elon community involved in the garden and see his students’ hard work. Students in the Garden Studio Class are taught which plants can grow during fall and spring in North Carolina and different ways to eat them. Students learned they can use the leaf of mustard greens as a wrapping to eat with anything. 

“So many of the students don’t have a background in gardening at all. So seeing them planting seeds, growing baby plants, transplanting and nurturing them is wonderful,” Strickland said.

The vegan Brunswick stew, a tradition and garden club secret recipe, made its appearance once again at the Pumpkin Festival. This year, there were three variations of the soup made by different students following the same recipe with the vegetables grown in the community garden. 

Ayla Gonzalez ’28 and Nastasia Harrison ’28 work for the Office of Sustainability as Eco-Reps, peer educators who teaches students how to be sustainable in their everyday lives. When planning to table for the pumpkin fest this year, Elon’s Eco-Reps came up with the idea of giving out reusable tea bags and allowing people to build their own tea flavor combinations. They also provided free thrifted mugs that people could take home with them or enjoy homemade apple cider at the festival.

“It’s a great way to bridge the gap between Elon students and the people who live in the area, while serving the community,” Gonzalez said. 

Samantha Hinton ’25, an Elon Year of Service Fellow and current teaching assistant for Strickland, has enjoyed the Pumpkin Festival since her first year and now has the unique opportunity to guide current students through the garden. 

“It is always really incredible to watch how people step up to make the festival happen and really just a joy to see people of all ages and all backgrounds celebrate harvest and fall,” Hinton said.

Fall craft stations, like a pumpkin bake sale and a hair tinsel table, crowded the garden, inviting attendees to enjoy the nice weather and their homemade apple cider. 

“It’s a great way to spend time around people and just be out in nature, doing pumpkin painting and other fall crafts,” said Karma Manson ’28, who attended the festival.

Students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to attend as many events as possible for a chance to win Phoenix Cash, hammocks and more! Event and Earth Week competition details are available on the Earth Week Website.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Monday, April 21

5 – 6 p.m. | From Squirrels to Song Birds: Date on Elon’s Bird Species | Global Commons, First Floor

Join Elon Data Nexus and Senior Lecturer in Statistics Ryne VanKrevelen on a walk around Elon’s beautiful campus to learn about Elon’s bird species, tools to help collect your own bird data, and what to do with it in day-to-day life. Sponsored by Elon Data Nexus

Tuesday, April 22

4 – 5 p.m. | Sustainability Master Plan 2025 Launch Celebration | McKinnon Hall, Moseley Center

Celebrate the launch of 51±ŹÁÏÍű’s Sustainability Master Plan 2025 with food, interactive activities and exciting prizes! Learn about Elon’s goals for a more sustainable future, connect with others and discover opportunities to support sustainability at Elon. This event is open to all students, faculty and staff.

6 – 7 p.m. | Fly Into Spring | Elon Community Garden

Join the Environmental Student Organization Network at the community garden to make bird feeders out of sustainable materials like pine cones and toilet paper rolls.

Wednesday, April 23

5:30 – 6:30 p.m. | Food for Thought | The Center for Race, Ethnicity and Diversity Education (CREDE), Moseley Center 

Join us for a delicious Asian feast and an insightful discussion on the significance of rice in Asian culture and economy. Meet at CREDE for amazing food and great company!

7 – 8 p.m. | Earth Week Keynote: Bill McKibben, ‘The Race For a Working Climate” | Alumni Gym, Koury Athletic Center

We’re at a hinge moment in human history. On the one hand, we face an environmental cataclysm like none before. On the other, the rapid fall in the price of clean energy gives us the chance for truly rapid progress. In this urgent, heartfelt and hopeful talk, New York Times bestselling author Bill McKibben reveals the part each of us must plan in where we need to go and provides realistic approaches to saving our planet, as individuals, and as thoughtful members of a mobilized community.

McKibben was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2014, sometimes called the “alternative Nobel” and received the Gandhi Peace Award in 2013. His book “The End of Nature” is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change and has been translated into 24 languages. TIME Magazine called McKibben “perhaps the planet’s best green journalist,” and he has lectured and organized on every continent, including Antarctica. He helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, and has recently helped found Third Act, to build a progressive organizing movement for people over age 60. McKibben, the author of fifteen books, is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Sponsored by the Office of Sustainability, the Environmental Studies Department, Facilities Management, Food Studies, the Global Neighborhood, the Kernodle Center for Civic Life, Life@Elon and Peace and Conflict Studies.

9 – 10 p.m. | S’Mores with Outdoors | Beck Pool Patio

Join Elon Outdoors and the Eco-Reps for a special Earth Week S’mores with Outdoors! Make your own sustainable bug spray so that you can enjoy more time outdoors.

Thursday, April 24

5 – 7 p.m. | Party for the Planet | Moseley West Lawn

Celebrate sustainability with fun activities and live entertainment! This event will also feature a thrift shop where students can trade their gently used clothes for new (gently used) clothes.

Friday, April 25

3:30 – 5:30 p.m. | Paint N’ Plant | Young Commons

Join us to design your own plant pots out of reusable jars and cans with the opportunity to take different plants home to grow for yourself! We’ll learn about minimizing waste, sustainable agriculture and reusable products, as well as work with Loy Farm to grow our own native plants!

4 – 5:30 p.m. | Bloom with Pride | Elon Community Garden 

Join the Gender and LGBTQIA Center to Celebrate Lesbian Visibility Day through bouquet making and flower vase decorating.

To prepare for this event, the GLC is currently accepting donations of clean glass jars, bottles and cans! Please bring any donations to the GLC.

4 – 6 p.m. | Bike to Burlington | Meet at Koury Center | Registration Required

Meet in front of the Koury Athletic Center and join Elon Outdoors and the Office of Sustainability for a bike ride to Burlington, where we’ll enjoy some ice cream while learning about local businesses and how they contribute to sustainability. Bikes will be provided, or bring your own.

Saturday, April 26

Sustainable Day of Service | Various Times and Locations 

Sustainable Day of Service Opportunities include:

9 AM – 11 a.m. | Lake Mackintosh Kayak Clean Up | Registration Required
Take care of local Lake Mackintosh while enjoying the beauty of nature. Kayaks, gloves and trash bags provided. Please wear clothing you don’t mind getting dirty and bring a reusable water bottle and sunscreen.

9 AM – 11 p.m. | Peacehaven Farm | Registration Required
Join the CORE members and participate in a Garden Workday!  You will be outside so make sure you wear close-toed shoes and bring a water bottle

12:30 – 3:30 p.m. | Women’s Resource Center Herb Festival Clean Up | Registration Required 
Help the center with the clean up after the festival! This won’t require heavy labor but is some physical work.

1 – 3 p.m. | Lake Mackintosh Kayak Clean Up | Registration Required
Take care of local Lake Mackintosh while enjoying the beauty of nature. Kayaks, gloves and trash bags provided. Please wear clothing you don’t mind getting dirty and bring a reusable water bottle and sunscreen.

Sunday, April 27

11 a.m. – 4 p.m. | Carolina Farm Stewardship Association Farm Tour | Meet in front of the Center for the Arts | Registration Required

Visit three local farms to learn about food production in Alamance County and try some local foods along the way!  Transportation provided.

“We never officially dated, we just planned a wedding and got married two days after graduation. We are coming up on our 24th anniversary,” Buckley said. The couple married in McKinnon Hall in the Moseley Center.

Into the garden

Buckley joined others in the Elon community on Oct. 25 for the 16th annual Pumpkin Festival at the Elon Community Garden, hosted by the garden studio class and the Elon Community Garden Club. Students, faculty and staff enjoyed pumpkin carving, vegan Brunswick stew, live music, and arts and craft stations. 

Jayla Martin-Beasley ‘24, the teaching assistant for the garden studio class and one of the organizers for the festival, credits the success of the event to the collaboration of nature and environment-centered classes and organizations, including Loy Farm, the garden club, and the agroecology class. 

“My favorite part of the festival is when professors and community members bring their children here,” said Martin-Beasley. “It is a good way to get people into the garden and showcase the amazing things our students have planted.”

The vegan Brunswick stew, a tradition and garden club secret recipe, made its appearance once again at the Pumpkin Festival. Attendees praised its resemblance to chicken and the inclusion of the different beans and roots grown by the garden club.    

“It was the perfect fall treat on a day like today, with just a little bit of spice and I was really proud of the students,” said Tal Fish, counseling/referral coordinator for Student Health Services.

Finding culture in the “roots”

While the Pumpkin Festival was a time of celebration, agroecology students used this time for environmental research, working with various roots to provide attendees with a familiar product with an adventitious twist.   

“The idea is we want to incorporate a lot of cultural traditions since these are vegetables from all around the world,” said Ali Whipple ‘27, whose agriculture lab class was tasked with focusing on the cultural relevance of the vegetables that they grow.

Her table showcased turmeric which is commonly grown on the Indian subcontinent and usually made into a dye. Whipple and her group were able to grow this foreign plant using Elon’s student-built greenhouse. Then, they grind up the root into a powder and turn it into a watercolor that participants at the festival could use to paint or sign their names on paper. 

Genevieve Nichols ‘25, who is taking Elon’s agroecology class, focused on the yacon root, native to South America. According to Nichols, the yacon root, despite its healing properties, is not well-known due to its difficulty in cultivation, however experimentation by the Japanese has introduced it to the global agriculture world. Students were experimenting with pumpkin spice pancakes and syrup from a yacon root. The yacon syrup with its molasses texture, though not as sweet as maple syrup or honey, provides a healthy yet still satisfying sweet alternative.  

“Instead of using honey or maple syrup, you can use yacon syrup. It helps with diabetes, inflammation, antioxidant properties, and there are studies about it helping to treat depression,” said Nichols ‘25.Ìę

Lilian Biebel ‘26 was tasting and redesigning her batch of taro milk boba tea (without the boba). Taro is a root vegetable, native to southeast Asia, but now is cultivated around the world including in Hawaii, Japan, and Africa. Biebel wanted to manipulate the taro root’s natural nutty taste to a sweeter taste resembling traditional milk boba tea.

Similarly, Lindsey Pearce ’24 was running a hot sauce booth, part of a research project about the different demographics associated with hot sauce. Pearce provided a questionnaire asking participants for their age, origins, their first experiences with hot sauce and daily hot sauce use. Participants were allowed to test their heat tolerance, from Frank’s Red Hot sauce to North Carolina locally sourced hot sauces that required participants to sign a waiver for heat-related injuries including, sweating spells or nausea. 

Jacob Rutz, lecturer in environmental studies who works at Loy Farm, didn’t hesitate to taste one of the hot sauces requiring the waiver. 

“I’m definitely feeling it, it’s no joke. I am going to wait a few minutes before I try the next one,” said Rutz, who explained that because of his experience at Loy Farm trying various peppers, he no longer has fear of a little heat. 

The Pumpkin Festival strives to unite cultural differences and Elon’s traditions to ensure that everyone can carve up some fun this fall. 

For the 16th year, Lecturer in Environmental Science and English Michael Strickland has coordinated the strawberry festival with his garden studio class, which also coordinates the garden’s Pumpkin Festival each fall.

“It’s all thanks to students in my class,” Strickland says. “Especially the teaching assistant every year that helps run it. They’re always training somebody younger than them.”

This year’s teaching assistant for the garden studio course was Eva Colon ’24, a psychology and human service studies major.

When asked more about the behind-the-scenes work, Strickland elaborated on how strategic the planning really needs to be for the strawberry festival.

“I mean, for all those plants over there, we have to start planting them in January,” Strickland explained. “So, a lot of ‘ahead of time’ planning has to go into all of this.”

Besides the typical strawberries and plants, the festival also had stations for lemonade, hot-sauce taste testing, live music, and even hand-made jewelry sold by Lucy Horn ’24.

Every year, students tend to enjoy the space for relaxation that the strawberry festival provides.

“For me, it’s just a really fun way to bring everyone together,” says Mia Purse ’25, former English student of Strickland’s. “It’s a nice way to forget about finals and get together with classmates outside of a lecture.”

“I thought the face painting would just be an attraction for the little kids,” Michael Strickland, lecturer in environmental studies at Elon, said. “But the students are into it. Everybody’s having a great time.”

Strickland, along with students in the garden studio course have been working to coordinate this greatly anticipated event since the beginning of the semester. Since the first Pumpkin Festival in 2007, there’s been a “manual” developed that each class updates to guide the group that comes after them.

One table consisted of thrift mugs to promote sustainability that people filled with apple cider, hot chocolate and other refreshments. Once your mug was filled, it was yours to keep.

The festival also provided those in attendance with agricultural and environmental fun facts about the area through a game of Kahoot, such as North Carolina is the top producer of sweet potatoes and home to the Christmas tree capital of the United States – Ashe County. Additionally, the Kahoot game mentioned nearby areas and discussed the food insecurity rate of Alamance County, which is 14%.

Other stations included bobbing for apples with chopsticks, as well as autumn-based treats including candy, soup, pumpkin dip and more.

While the pumpkin festival is a popular event for the Elon Community Garden, it certainly isn’t the only way for students to get involved. “We do a festival in the spring, the Strawberry festival,” Strickland explained. “We have the Elon Community Garden club that students can join as well, volunteer hours where students can come and work and do internships. During the summer it’s quite active with usually two or three students who intern.”

Before the pandemic, the festival would attract as many as four hundred people. As we begin to transition to a new normal, numbers are beginning to pick up again.

“The first year of COVID, we scaled back and barely held a festival. It was outdoors and people could just get a pumpkin and carve it, but there was big-time social distancing,” Strickland said. “Then last year, the turnout was about a quarter of what we normally get. But typically, after the last set of classes, the numbers begin to pick up.”

The community garden serves as a symbol of sustainability, closeness and relaxation on Elon’s campus that more students should be aware of and immerse themselves in.

From 3 to 6 p.m., the Elon community gathered to enjoy live music from local artists, pumpkin carving, as well as autumn-based foods such as soup, hot cider and baked goods from Elon Dining/Harvest Table.

The studio garden class and Elon Community Garden Club have hosted this event since 2008. Last year, the festival was canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions, but the dozens of students in attendance and environmental studies lecturer Michael Strickland are excited to be out celebrating once again.

“It means everything,” Strickland said, who also teaches the garden studio class and advisor to the Elon Community Garden Club. “It’s not just a tradition, the students want to be outdoors and get people together.”

Each year, the students of the garden studio class have continued the tradition of the festival while adding new ideas and making their own for the next set of students. And that has continued all due to the “investment and ownership” of the students.

Strickland said that around this time every year, he’ll get an outpouring of emails for alumni asking when the Pumpkin Festival is happening. It’s a sense of being a part of something that students gravitate to when it comes to the event.

“Every year, I say to the students, ‘If you guys want to give this up, it’s OK with me. I’m getting too old for this mess.’” he said. “And they always say, ‘No, we’re not going to drop that tradition.’”

Sydney Steinberg ’22, president of the Elon Community Garden Club, said she’s especially proud that the Pumpkin Festival is the first sustainably-certified event on campus.

She realized that wanted to be involved in the garden club very early after attending the Pumpkin Festival her freshman year. Since then, she has stayed with the club and found its focus on community to be incredibly rewarding.

“We’re all about community, that’s the core of our club and class. So, it’s nice to have moments like these and see that come to fruition,” Steinberg said.

Continuing tradition, there was also the signature vegan Brunswick stew that was a staple for some attendees.

“My favorite part has been the Brunswick stew, which I haven’t had in a year,” said Victoria Colbeck ’23. “And then seeing it all come together from the planning process about a month ago to the final day.

“Those few hours building up to the event are very exhilarating. It’s kind of quiet at first, then people start coming. The energy that people bring is my favorite part.”

Colbeck took the garden studio class last year after selecting the course as one of her electives. One of her future goals is to one day have a garden of her own but couldn’t participate in the Pumpkin Festival due to it being canceled.

“It was a good outlet in the midst of the pandemic,” Colbeck said. “I think the garden is like a hidden oasis on campus. The more people that get to see it is beneficial,” Colbeck said.

Lilly Santiago ’22 said she came to the festival two years ago after hearing about it from a classmate. Now, as a senior and following the pandemic, she said she’s glad to be outdoors enjoying fellowship and friendship after being isolated.

“It’s different from other events on campus,” Santiago said. “You definitely appreciate that after all the times were there wasn’t anything going on.”

Strickland said that he’s surprised by the number of students that say they had no clue about the garden. The objective of the Pumpkin Festival, and the spring Strawberry Festival, are to highlight the community garden as a place to unwind and relax.

“Our primary goal is to get people to bond over the garden. It’s a little hidden gem on campus. People have said it’s the funkiest looking place on campus,” Strickland said. “Let people know that the garden is here and to get them accustomed to it as a cool space to go on campus to feel like you’re somewhere completely different.”

This is a great opportunity for any student seeking to get published by a peer-reviewed magazine. The final submission deadline is March 16, 2016. Submissions should be emailed to visionsmagazine@elon.edu.

For more information and to view previous editions, please visit http://www.elon.edu/e-web/bft/sustainability/ac-visionsmag.xhtml.

By Brittany Barker ‘19

Pumpkins, music and foods of seasonal inspiration were shared Friday afternoon in the Elon Community Garden as 51±ŹÁÏÍű students in an environmental studies course hosted the 6th Annual Pumpkin Festival.

Organizers said the Oct. 30, 2015, festival helped showcase the Elon Community Garden as a gathering place on campus. Fun activities such as live music and face painting, as well as corn hole and pumpkin carving, brought out the inner child in everyone who attended, regardless of age.

“It’s kind of a last hoorah before the days get darker and colder and the growing season ends,” said Elon senior Alyssa Adler, an environmental studies student manager of the Loy Farm and Community Garden from Massachusetts. “We also want to promote awareness of the Community Garden and get people out into our natural environment.”

Michael Strickland, who teaches the “Garden Studio” course that plans the annual event, said that holding the festival the night before Halloween provided an extra dose of zeal.

Elon Hillel, the Office of Sustainability and Eco-Reps, Odyssey Scholars, Alpha Phi Omega, Sierra Club, the Elon Community Garden Club, Kappa Alpha Omicron, the Department of Environmental Studies, the Center for Environmental Studies, Elon Academy, SGA’s Fun Fund and SPARKS supported the event.

“The Pumpkin Festival brings community members together,” said Elon senior Ellen Lana, an environmental studies major from Buffalo, New York. “We foster an incredibly relaxed, welcoming environment and are incredibly excited to see community members interacting in a different setting.”

Adler and Lana said that it is the little things that count for the festival. Some of the best moments are just having everyone come together and seeing the mix of astonishment and excitement on the faces of those who attend.  

They said the Pumpkin Festival is a unique Elon tradition that enables students to celebrate the fall by reconnecting with each other through activities enjoyed by all members of the campus community.

Located on East College Avenue behind the Sklut Hillel Center, the family-friendly festival will include live music from local artists and Elon students, fall-themed baked goods, games and crafts, and much more.

A traditional vegan-Brunswick Stew will also be back by popular demand along with hot cider and hot chocolate. The festival has become an annual event for students to bring the surrounding community together to celebrate the autumnal season and foster an appreciation of gardening.

Child-friendly activities include pumpkin carving, a photo booth, and fairy hair.

The Garden Studio class strives for as close to a zero-waste event as possible, and students encourage guests to bring their own mug/bowl/utensils. While students will have utensils available, numbers are limited.

Elon friends and supporters in the annual event:  Hillel, Office of Sustainability and Eco-Reps, Odyssey Scholars, Alpha Phi Omega,Sierra Club, Elon Community Garden Club, Kappa Alpha Omicron, the Department of Environmental Studies, the Center for Environmental Studies, Elon Academy, SGA’s Fun Fund and SPARKS.

With pumpkin carving, live music and free fall-themed baked goods, visitors to the Elon Community Garden on Oct. 24, 2014, enjoyed festivities organized by students in faculty member Michael Strickland’s fall semester “Garden Studio” course.

The event was a way for Strickland and his class to showcase the Elon Community Garden, which he said “doesn’t function in the typical sense” with many individual plots. “We want the garden to be a focal point for the campus,” he said.

The Center for Environmental Studies, the Department of Environmental Studies, Elon Hillel, the Elon Academy, the Watson-Odyssey Scholars Program and the Office of Sustainability supported the event with additional assistance from the university’s Fun Fund.

New this year was an information table on composting, and musical entertainment from student singer-songwriters and vocal groups.

The festival was a trash free event with composting and recycling bins available. While compostable bowls and cups are available, the class encourages visitors to bring a mug and/or bowl to use for food and drink.

“A lot of people are interested in the event because of its fall themes and pumpkins,” said Elon junior Mary Ann Collins, a psychology major from Dallas, “but this draws in concepts related to sustainability. Giving people information about that, and raising awareness of the garden in general, is good.”

Strickland said the festival – and its corresponding spring Strawberry Festival – will eventually feature dishware thrown by students in an Elon pottery course.