With a record number of donations and pumpkins, The Great Pumpkin Challenge creator Mackenzie Page said this year’s campaign “was so much fun. It was amazing.”

By Monday, November 2, Mackenzie was ready to reflect on the 228 pumpkins dropped off at her family’s Main Street home. This year, Mackenzie said, beat previous pumpkin drop off numbers by about 50.

This year’s Great Pumpkin Challenge also received more monetary donations than ever, and by Monday Mackenzie said this year’s challenge had collected $35,000, and donations were still coming in from corporate donors and individuals. She also said donations can be made for roughly the next two weeks to continue support for Paul Newman’s Hole In The Wall Gang Camp.

“The community this year … every year really, has been outstanding,” said Mackenzie. “They have just been so supportive.”

On Friday, October 30, the second day for this year’s pumpkin collection hours, representatives of the Hole In The Wall Gang Camp and Life Is Good gathered at 14 Main Street, where people were dropping of pumpkins ahead of Halloween.

Many people stopped by Friday to show support and add a pumpkin to the growing collection. With games laid out, refreshments being served, and a general party atmosphere throughout, many also stayed to enjoy some time outdoors on the sunny autumn afternoon.

Inspired By A Friend

The Great Pumpkin Challenge began four years ago, when Mackenzie was in eighth grade. She was inspired to support a family friend, Zoe McMorran, who was diagnosed with brain cancer.

That first year Mackenzie challenged residents to carve a pumpkin, drop it off to display at her14 Main Street home before Halloween, and offer a suggested donation of $5. That 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.

Carved pumpkins and donations were collected Thursday through Saturday this year, and pumpkins were on display and lit up in time for trick-or-treating festivities on Main Street on October 31.

This year may be the final year for The Great Pumpkin Challenge with Mackenzie, now a senior at Newtown High School, heading to college next fall. But thanks to a number of donations and fundraising support, this year’s Great Pumpkin Challenge surpassed Mackenzie’s original hopes a few weeks ago that this year would be the biggest year yet for the campaign.

By 4:30 pm on Friday Mackenzie was busy welcoming many people as they arrived.

Actress and Hole In The Wall Gang Camp board member Bridget Moynahan and Ryan Thompson, the camp’s chief communications officer, also met with people as they stopped by.

And fresh from a 60–day tour to “GROWtheGood,” Life Is Good Co-Founder John Jacobs stopped by to support the event. Mr Jacobs said the tour, like his company, aimed to shine a light on heroes of optimism. Mackenzie, he said, is one of those heroes.

Life is Good, Mr Jacobs said, supports companies that do good work for kids. Mr Jacobs said he is very aware of the “incredible work the Hole In The Wall Gang Camp does,” and his company partnered with the camp to support those efforts. The more Life is Good can spread stories of optimism, Mr Jacobs said, the more it spreads.

“We believe that what you focus on will grow, and Mackenzie is a hero to us,” said Mr Jacobs.

Mackenzie, Mr Jacobs said, was inspired to help her friend in a way that honored her friend’s strength and courage, and in the process Mackenzie “lifted up the community,” too.

“That’s powerful, especially coming from so young a woman,” Mr Jacobs said.

Life is Good donated $5,000 to the Great Pumpkin Challenge and announced a matching donation campaign ahead of last week’s collection hours to match up to an additional $10,000 in donations.

Ms Moynahan also said she was impressed, adding the event represents “two companies coming together to celebrate this wonderful impressive young woman.”

Mr Thompson said he has known Mackenzie since near the start of the Great Pumpkin Challenge.

“She is just so full of energy and enthusiasm, and has just a big heart... You can see it when she smiles,” said Mr Thompson, with Mackenzie just behind him greeting more arrivals with pumpkins in their arms.

Last year’s Great Pumpkin Challenge raised $3,014 for the Hole In The Wall Gang Camp. Overall, the first four years of the challenge raised $14,800 for different charities, and $9,365 of that went to the camp, according to Mackenzie.

This year her challenge spread.

After Mackenzie participated as a co-chair for the 2015 Travelers Championship this past summer, she learned at the start of October that the PGA tour event that donates 100 percent of its net proceeds to charities would be giving more than $15,000 to the Great Pumpkin Challenge to donate to the Hole In The Wall Gang Camp.

Additional Financial Support

After hearing about the donation that has been made by Travelers Championship, Mackenzie received more good news last month. She then learned about Life Is Good’s donation and offer, and then additional donations and challenges came in.

Edible Arrangements Vice President for Business John Boccuzzi stopped by last Friday afternoon with a donation of $1,903 from his company, representing donations by employees, he said. Mr Boccuzzi also offered words of encouragement for Mackenzie. A resident of Newtown, he was also one of many people who paused to marvel at the pumpkins being arranged on scaffolding.

In addition, Mackenzie also learned that Positive Tracks, a nonprofit organization based out of New Hampshire, announced it would double donations made by the campaign, and other campaigns like it, to support the camp, up to $50,000.

Mackenzie explained on Monday that Positive Tracks is doubling all donations made by people under the age of 18 to the camp up to $50,000. Since The Great Pumpkin Challenge is under her name, she said the challenge’s donation will be matched by Positive Tracks.

Mackenzie’s family members were also busy on Friday working collection hours and greeting supporters. Alan Page, Mackenzie’s father, deftly found where to place a number of the pumpkins on the scaffolding. Mr Page said that 54 pumpkins had arrived the previous afternoon, during the first session of pumpkin collection hours.

Liz Page, Mackenzie’s mom, said support for the campaign is offered by many in the community, from Taylor Rental, Paproski’s Castle Hill Farm, and Mason’s Farm Market in Monroe. After Halloween, once the carved pumpkins begin to go bad, they will be taken to Castle Hill Farm, Mackenzie said Friday afternoon. The cows at the nearby farm, where she has hosted a few pre-Challenge displays each year, she said, eat the pumpkins.

This year Mackenzie also challenged participants to carve pumpkins with “their team,” whether that is a neighborhood or scouting group. Among the groups who responded to that suggestion this year was the JV soccer team from Newtown High School. Players showed up with 19 pumpkins to be added to the collection on Friday afternoon.

“It was just so great to see everyone that makes it what it is,” said Mackenzie on Monday. “I couldn’t have done it without Newtown.”

Mackenzie said people came out to show support, just to be apart of the campaign.

“And it wouldn’t have been the same anywhere else… We live in a special community,” said Mackenzie.

More information about the Great Pumpkin Challenge is available on its website, greatpumpkinchallenge.org.