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COVID-19 won’t stop Halloween festivities, but it has altered them. The city’s fall events have been combined into a Fall Family Fun Week to be held at Schrom Hills Park next week. The usual volunteer-organized pumpkin walk will not take place this year, but will likely be replaced by a scavenger hunt.
Fall Family Fun Week will combine the costume parade usually held at Roosevelt Center, and the Halloween celebration usually held at Springhill Lake Recreation Center. The event will take place next to the baseball field at Schrom Hills Park. All participants are required to wear masks and will go through a health screening. Each household group will have a designated area in the field socially distant from other groups.
City Recreation Supervisor Anne Oudemans said organizers are focusing on fun and safety. “Since the pandemic hit, everything we do, we really focus… we always focus on safety first,” Oudemans added. “It’s just there’s a lot more considerations now in response to the pandemic.”
The week will include scarecrow making on October 20 and 22 and pumpkin carving on October 19 and 21. Three time slots will be available each day, one each at 2:45, 4 and 5:15 p.m. Registration is required to participate, and approximately 30 people can register for each time slot. The events are only open to Greenbelt residents. There is a small fee for each activity, but children under the age of 3 will not be charged.
Oudemans encourages attendees to wear Halloween costumes for the event. “We’re excited to do whatever we can to help celebrate community in Greenbelt,” she said. “We’re hoping for a great turnout.”
For the scarecrow making activity, the city will provide straw and twine, but participants need to bring clothes for their scarecrow. The city also will provide pumpkins and carving kits, but if participants want to get creative they are welcome to bring other materials. The Greenbelt Police Department will be present to provide treats to those attending the event.
The pumpkin festival, which has in previous years been organized by volunteer coordinator Amy Knesel, will not take place this year. The pumpkin walk is not an official city event, and Knesel said she does not have the time or resources to comply with city permit requirements during the pandemic.
“I can’t make a new website to do timed ticketing entry. I can’t have a bunch of staff members keeping people six feet apart,” Knesel said. “It just did not feel like a safe decision” to offer the activity.
The pumpkin festival was originally organized to bring awareness and appreciation to the Greenbelt Forest Preserve. Knesel would like to refocus on that goal this year.
“What I would really like to do is emphasize the importance of appreciating the protected wooded space that we have,” she said. “I think the best thing, the most responsible thing to do this year, since we’re not doing the walk, is instead to really pivot to talk about the importance of maintaining that protected space.”
Knesel also hopes to plan a scavenger hunt of pumpkins around Greenbelt which people could safely complete in their own time.
Allison Mollenkamp is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Maryland reporting for the News Review.
