Nov 74 min read

The Nauvoo Discovery Program and The Great Pumpkin

Updated: Nov 8

Note from the editor: In this blog, read about how The Nauvoo Discovery Program lends a hand and enjoys The Nauvoo Pumpkin Walk, a 30 + year event held in Nauvoo every October, begun by Durrell Nelson "Mr. Halloween." The Nauvoo Pumpkin Walk hosts a parade, costumes, fun activities, and displays of over 400 carved and lit pumpkins. It is a fun event attended by thousands of people. NDP helped out this semester by carving pumpkins, setting up tables and chairs for the food court, and cleaning up all the pumpkins, buckets, and hay bails after the Pumpkin Walk. In this blog, view an assortment of pumpkins from past events, relative images, and quotes. Be sure to read to the end to delight in some fun pictures of NDP at their autumn photo session.

Enjoy ~ Sandra S. Marler

Durrell Nelson "Mr. Halloween" image carved on a pumpkin for the Nauvoo Pumpkin Walk

Blog by Rebecca Gordon-Ross

(Fall 2024 NDP participant)

For those who don’t know, the Pumpkin Walk is an annual event that Nauvoo puts on every year on the Saturday before Halloween, and the town is filled to bursting (literally, we have tourists that have to stay in other towns to fit everyone) with people from all over to participate as a guest or a vendor. There’s food, and the shops are open late with special sales, just for the Pumpkin Walk. There’s a cannon for launching Pumpkins and a costume parade that anyone can join and it’s just a lot of fun. Everyone dresses up in some way and has a blast pretending to be kids again, which is the best part of Halloween, in my opinion.

I wasn’t able to attend due to a prior commitment, but I did ask around for people to tell me about it, and I can tell you, everyone who went had a great time, even those who had to work all day. Because even though they were working, they got to interact with everyone that came in, to shop or eat. It was a great community-building opportunity for the town to come together and spend time with each other in a safe and fun environment.

The Pumpkin Walk Prep!

Gutting and Carving

As part of preparing for the Pumpkin Walk, the community comes together and spends four days drawing on, gutting, and carving pumpkins to line Mulholland Street with as many pumpkins as possible. It really gives it (Nauvoo) that small-town Stars Hollow Festival/Fund Raiser vibe from Gilmore Girls. Because I wasn’t able to go and participate, I asked Larissa Northcott to write up a little bit about her experience helping out:

“We had the opportunity to participate in the preparation of this anticipated event as a part of the Nauvoo Discovery Program. NDP gathered to help out whenever a spare moment was granted and carved as many pumpkins as possible. Everyone was working together lifting, gutting, and carving. The warehouse was covered in pumpkin pieces by the end, as well as each carver. To finish the preparations each pumpkin was sprayed with a bleach and water solution to deter pests and holes were punched into the bottoms where the candles would be placed on the night of the festival. More than 400 pumpkins were now ready for their big moment to stand out. All that was left was to walk down the street and admire the work that we had done as a community! Finding the pumpkins that we got to carve personally provided a glimmer of pride and connection towards the little town on the elbow of the Mississippi, Beautiful Nauvoo!” Larissa Northcott

Nauvoo Pumpkin Displays

“The pumpkin walk was fun!! There were thousands of people haha I didn’t know Nauvoo could contain that many people lol. Anyways we got to walk around to all of the booths; there were so many masterpieces of pumpkin carvings bruh, and I got to hang out with some good friends of mine. There was also Karaoke! OH! AND THERE WAS A TALL SCARY MAN ON STILTS THAT ACTED AS A SCARECROW JUMPSCARING PEOPLE LEFT AND RIGHT! Overall it was great to see so many people show up and have a good time with each other.” Netane Moleni

The Nauvoo Pumpkin Walk

“This was my first Pumpkin Walk since living here in Nauvoo and it was such a fun and festive experience! There were just enough costumes, vendors, and food to make the perfect, small-town autumn celebration!” Mary Roberts

NDP Photo Session

When you get a bunch of YSA's together to take pictures, shenanigans will ensue, it’s just the natural order of things. I don’t know if you all were aware, but Young Single Adults are basically toddlers who can drive and have jobs. Put us in a park or an open field with trees and we will immediately become five years old again. Because it’s a new semester (and also because the color scheme for NDP changed), we had to take new pictures with our new shirts as a group. We got some great shots and if you want to see some (additional) behind-the-scenes for that, check out the NDP Instagram page. But as soon as we were done, half the boys were up trees and hanging like monkeys. Granted, some of the girls were too, but they mostly just took other fun pictures of each other, because why not? We had a great time doing it and the pictures turned out great!

Fall really is the best time to be taking pictures, especially when the leaves change color and no one will change my mind on that. Will I be using some of the fun pictures we took as marketing ploys to show how much fun we all have here in Nauvoo? 1000%. The pictures are cute and if it gets people to come then it works out in the end.