It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Or not...

When I first began my internship with Giles Cooperative Extension, Cora gave me a project: Pumpkin Planting Day.  In the past, Pumpkin Planting was an opportunity for children in the community to come to the office, learn about pumpkins, go outside and plant some, then go home with seeds of their very own and complete a 4-H Pumpkin Project Book.  I was nervous to take over a project that had been several years in the running, but also excited to hold a community event.  We picked a date in the middle of June, good for planting pumpkins.

So I began by reviewing projects books from the past and doing more research on pumpkins.  I then edited and started adding my own personal touches to the workbooks and flyers.  After a few weeks of getting the word out (even going out and delivering flyers around the county) and preparing the plots and material the day had finally arrived.  Six PM rolled around (the time scheduled) and...no one was there.  A few minutes later, one very active 4-H member shows up.  He had attended pumpkin planting last year and was active on his family's farm.  No one else showed up, and participating in an event alone is no fun.  So we sent him home with some seeds and decided to re-schedule.

Due to the schedule, and getting the word out (again) we had to wait until late July.  Late July is the tail-end of the pumpkin planting season, but it was what we had to work with.  I re-edited the flyers, and e-mails, and re-weeded the plots with Cora.  I spent another day delivering the flyers, which also happened to coincide with the recent heavy rains we have been having the past several weeks.  Finally, the re-scheduled date arrived.  We had finished up a day of Day Camp and were ready for some pumpkin planting.  Six PM, and no one is there.  We waited fifteen minutes and still no one arrived.

I felt terrible for wasting resources for the Pumpkin Day.  I was sad that after two tries no one came to the event.  Cora gave me some advice: "Don't take it personally."  Sometimes even if a lot of work goes into an event, people don't come.  How could I have reached out better?  How could I make it more appealing?  These are all questions I asked myself after the no-show.  One thing I have learned from this experience is that even though kids have more free time in the summer, that doesn't mean that they will be more likely to attend events.  A lot of this depends on the parents and their availability, something that I had not considered as much before.

Although, I wish I was proudly blogging about the success of the Pumpkin Planting Day, I will consider it a success in another way.  Instead of being upset and mad, I will take this as an opportunity to learn and do better on future projects in whatever field I am in.

The before and after weeding of the pumpkin plots

At least weeding was a good stress reliever...