This year will mark the fifth and possibly the last year for the Great Pumpkin Challenge, but Mackenzie Page, who began the annual luminaria celebration on Main Street, received news last week of the largest donation to date.

The Great Pumpkin Challenge began in 2011, when Mackenzie was in eighth grade. She was inspired to support a family friend, Zoe McMorran, who was diagnosed with brain cancer. That year Mackenzie challenged residents to carve a pumpkin, drop it off to display at her 14 Main Street home before Halloween, and offer a suggested donation of $5.

Mackenzie is again challenging residents to participate in the campaign, and to raise more money than in previous years.

That first year Mackenzie raised money both for the American Cancer Society and for Zoe’s family. Since then, money has been raised for Paul Newman’s Hole In The Wall Gang Camp, a summer camp and center serving children and families coping with cancer and other serious illnesses.

On Monday, October 12, Mackenzie said last year’s Great Pumpkin Challenge raised $3,014 for the camp. Overall, the first four years of the challenge raised $14,800 for different charities, and $9,365 of that went to the camp.

Last Thursday, October 8, Mackenzie learned while attending a charity celebration in Hartford that the Travelers Championship, Connecticut’s PGA tour event that donates 100 percent of its net proceeds to charities, will be giving over $15,000 to the Great Pumpkin Challenge to donate to the Hole In The Wall Gang Camp.

Mackenzie was nominated to be a co-chair for the 2015 Travelers Championship by the camp, and was chosen — along with Chase Krubis, Brittany Vose, and Ben Goldman — to serve as an honorary co-chair for the event.

“I got to tell more people about the Great Pumpkin Challenge,” Mackenzie said about her experience.

This summer Mackenzie said she was also able to visit the Hole In The Wall Gang Camp and she surprised Zoe during her visit.

“It was a wonderful opportunity to be able to appreciate what the camp does,” said Mackenzie, explaining that visiting was a rare chance.

Zoe is doing “okay,” Mackenzie said. She will always have brain cancer, “but she has such a positive attitude.”

Looking back at the first year of the Great Pumpkin Challenge, Mackenzie said her Letter to the Editor to The Newtown Bee that year asked everyone to be an “opZomist.”

That still summarizes Zoe, and Mackenzie said she is still trying to be an “opZomist” herself “all these years later.”

Over the last five years, Mackenzie has attended a number of events to promote The Great Pumpkin Challenge, including the Lions Club’s annual Great Pumpkin Race, set this year for October 17 between 10 am and 2 pm at Edmond Town Hall, 45 Main Street. While Mackenzie said she will not be able to attend the pumpkin race this year, her family members plan on representing the challenge at the event.

Mackenzie also plans to be at Paproski’s Castle Hill Farm in the afternoon for the next two Sundays before Halloween to help spread the message about The Great Pumpkin Challenge.

Mackenzie said she does not know where she will attend college, but she is thinking of bringing the challenge with her wherever she decides to study. Unless someone offers to hold and oversee the challenge, Mackenzie said she thinks this will be the final year the Great Pumpkin Challenge is in Newtown. For anyone willing to oversee the challenge, the high school senior said she would offer her tips, tricks, and advice.

“I’m really excited about this year… And we’re hoping this is going to be the biggest year yet,” said Mackenzie.

This year Mackenzie said she wanted to help bring the community together more, and she has an extra challenge to do that. Mackenzie asks that Great Pumpkin Challenge participants “find their team,” whether that be their neighborhood or scouting group, to get together to carve pumpkins together.

Mackenzie’s best pumpkin carving advice is to “be creative.”

One family who created a pumpkin for the Great Pumpkin Challenge in the past, Mackenzie said, “went all out” by making a pumpkin monster out of three pumpkins.

“It was really awesome because they attached three pumpkins together,” said Mackenzie.

She still loves classic jack-o-lanterns, too.

Participants in this year’s Great Pumpkin Challenge are asked to drop off pumpkins Thursday and Friday, October 29 and 30, from 3:30 pm to 7 pm, or Saturday, October 31, between 9 am and 2 pm, at 14 Main Street, with the suggested donations. Virtual pumpkins can be purchased online at .greatpumpkinchallenge.org

Pumpkins will be lit up and on display for Halloween.