April 2001
Pumpkin Patch in Denver Raises $23,000.00 For Habitat for Humanity
An interfaith consortium of 12 faith groups (not just "churches") in the suburbs west of Denver found that a Pumpkin Patch was their single biggest source of funds to build a Habitat for Humanity house last year.
The Habitat house, located in Lakewood, required a sponsorship fee of $44,000.00, and Jefferson County Partners for Interfaith Action had budgeted $3,000.00 as a conservative estimate. They cautiously asked for only a quarter truckload to start with, and ended up selling enough pumpkins to net $23,000.00!
With a successful first year under their belt, the interfaith group is booking three truckloads for starters and is expecting to net over $30,000.00 this year and possibly more.
When the consortium's Habitat house was completed and dedicated on April 21, 2001, the group had a surplus Of $ 27.000.00 in their bank account for their next Habitat house and had pledged to build five Habitat houses in the coming five years as part of Habitat's worldwide "More Than Houses" goal to build 100,000 houses by 2005.
The interfaith group includes a Roman Catholic Parish and several Protestant churches, but it also includes a Jewish congregation, a Baha'i group, a Unitarian church, and Mile Hi Church of Religious Science, which provides the high-visibility location for the Pumpkin Patch. All the faith groups participate in staffing the Pumpkin Patch, which is open from 10 am until after dark every day from early October until Halloween. Then all the faith groups work together to build the house they have funded.
"It has proven to be a great interfaith experience," said chairman Don Davenport of St Paul's Episcopal Church. "It's truly an example of the 'Theology of the Hammer' espoused by Habitat's founder, Millard Fuller, in which people of differing faiths put aside their differences to put their faith in action for the benefit of mankind."