Terry Richards | The Valdosta Daily TimesEzekiel Arzayus, 22 months, looks for a potential Jack-O'-Lantern Sunday at the Park Avenue United Methodist Church pumpkin patch in Valdosta.

VALDOSTA — Ezekiel Arzayus, 22 months old, toddled about between rows of pumpkins Sunday, trying to pick out just the right one.

“We came out here last year,” said his father, Juan. “We’re hoping to make a tradition of it.”

The “tradition” is the annual pumpkin patch sale on the front lawn of the Park Avenue United Methodist Church. Hundreds of pumpkins and gourds graced the church’s landscape Sunday.

The church started the annual sale in 2009, said Jamie Bone, who was working the cash box for the pumpkin patch Sunday. Bone represents one of the three ministries at the church that benefit from the sale.

“The ministries involved are the youth ministry, the children’s ministry and mission and outreach work,” she said. 

Bone is involved with the mission work ministry.

Proceeds from the sale are split in thirds among the ministries, with the results going back into the community, she said.

“For instance, we provide snack packs on Friday at a local elementary school,” Bone said. “We go and provide the children with food they would not normally have otherwise.”

Reports of a national pumpkin shortage don’t seem to have affected Park Avenue United Methodist. Crop experts in Illinois, the nation’s largest pumpkin-growing state, say yields could be off by as much as a third this year thanks to record rainfalls washing out the crop. The shortage is expected to hit canned pumpkin pie filling supplies harder than the Jack-O’-Lantern market, according to the Associated Press.

Bone said the church has plenty of pumpkins on hand and is expecting another shipment Oct. 22 from its supplier in New Mexico. The church’s prices range from 75 cents for tiny pumpkins to $40 for huge monsters.

The pumpkin patch will be open at Park Avenue Methodist from 10:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 1-6:30 p.m. Sundays through Oct. 31, she said.

Meanwhile, Juan Arzayus said his family would probably buy at least two pumpkins — one to carve and one to put little Ezekiel’s handprints on.

Ezekiel was too busy waddling among the pumpkins and squealing to comment.

Terry Richards is an editor at The Valdosta Daily Times.