Western North Carolina church’s pumpkin patch supports health care programs in Haiti

[Episcopal News Service] After being postponed last year due to Hurricane Helene, Grace Episcopal Church in Asheville has resumed hosting its annual pumpkin patch on its front yard this October with most proceeds supporting health care programs in Haiti. 

“The pumpkin patch is a lot of fun for families and it’s so popular that we usually sell out, but it’s really a great opportunity for us to bring awareness to Haiti and tell people who they’re supporting when they buy pumpkins from us,” Kim Hayes, Grace’s senior warden, told Episcopal News Service.

The pumpkin patch will continue through Halloween, Oct. 31, or until every pumpkin is sold.

Established more than 20 years ago, Grace sells about 44,000 pounds of pumpkins annually. The pumpkins are sourced from the Greensboro, North Carolina-based nonprofit Pumpkin Patch Fundraisers, which grows pumpkins on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico and donates them to hundreds of organizations, including Episcopal churches, for fundraising. After returning a portion of the proceeds to Pumpkin Patch Fundraisers, Grace donates the rest to Consider Haiti, an Asheville-based secular nonprofit that supports self-sustaining, Haitian-led health care programs.

Consider Haiti’s four core programs include enrolling malnourished children in a six-month community health program; distributing goats, rabbits and other agricultural resources to families and providing training to care for animals and resources; distributing filters to make water safe to drink; and, when possible, holding pediatric clinics in rural areas north of Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital.

During the hours of operation, pumpkin patch volunteers distribute flyers with information on Consider Haiti’s work. Grace also posts signs promoting Consider Haiti outside the church.

Haiti, already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has been further destabilized since 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest and gang violence. In 2021, the country, located west of the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean, suffered another major earthquake, and its president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated.

“There’s no eloquent way to say it, but between the natural disasters, political strife and gang violence, the people in Haiti just can’t catch a break, and it’s heartbreaking,” Shearon Roberts, a board member of Consider Haiti who regularly volunteers at Grace’s pumpkin patch, told ENS. “We need to keep bringing awareness to these struggles and understand what the conditions are in Haiti and how great the needs are.”

Roberts said Consider Haiti has been unable to hold any medical clinics in the country since 2019 because of the ongoing issues. The nonprofit has been financially supporting Haiti via bank transfers to contract workers in the country.

“The Haitians who work with Consider Haiti have continued during all this strife and kidnapping and inflation to work despite these conditions. They’re doing incredible work,” she said.

The Port-au-Prince-based Diocese of Haiti, the largest diocese in The Episcopal Church by membership, has also suffered from infighting and corruption allegations in recent years. The Province II diocese been in leadership limbo since 2018, when its last bishop election failed to receive churchwide backing over procedural concerns and allegations of favoritism. In 2022, at least a half dozen diocesan officials, including the standing committee president, were ensnared in an arms trafficking scandal.

Grace suffered minimal damage from Hurricane Helene in late September 2024, but opted not to host the pumpkin patch because, according to Hayes, “it just didn’t feel right asking people to spend money on pumpkins when trees had fallen on their houses and their homes were flooded.” 

Hayes said the decision was “extremely difficult to make” because the pumpkin patch is Consider Haiti’s biggest annual fundraiser. In 2023, Grace raised $34,000 selling pumpkins and donated $13,500, or $40%, to Consider Haiti after paying Pumpkin Patch Fundraisers, according to Roberts. Not hosting the pumpkin patch last year was “really devastating for Consider Haiti because they’re so reliant on what we make.”

Grace was still able to donate some money last year, however. Pumpkin Patch Fundraiser’s shipment was already en route to Asheville when it was clear that Hurricane Helene would impact Western North Carolina upon making landfall in Florida’s Big Bend Region, so the pumpkins were rerouted to Raleigh. A local fire department offered to take Grace’s pumpkins and host a pumpkin patch at the station, albeit on a much smaller scale than Grace’s annual operation. The fire department gave Grace half of the proceeds, about $1,000, to donate to Consider Haiti.

“It wasn’t much money, but the spirit in which it was given made such an impact on all of us, I think,” Hayes said. “We really appreciate what the firefighters did for us on such short notice.”

Hayes said Grace is on track to sell all its pumpkins by Halloween, like previous years.

“You can still see Helene’s impact scattered throughout Western North Carolina, but the pumpkin patch is just one more normal thing we can give the Asheville community while supporting a great cause,” she said.

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.