Pumpkin Festival Background Information
The Half Moon Bay Beautification Committee
The Half Moon Bay Beautification Committee consists of an all-volunteer group of civic-minded citizens. The committee’s goals are to make a lasting contribution to the preservation and beautification of the town’s historic Main Street, to make donations to local non-profit organizations through a grant process, to fund college scholarships for local high school students, and to provide an exceptional fund-raising opportunity to local non-profits through participation in the Art & Pumpkin Festival.
In order to raise funds for their projects, they started the Art & Pumpkin Festival in 1971. Since the festival’s inception, the committee has contributed more than $2.6 million dollars to various civic projects, community service organizations and Half Moon Bay High School student scholarships. Some of the Main Street projects funded by the committee at no cost to the city have included: the renovation of City Hall, the painting of historic buildings, the installation of old-fashioned street lights and wooden benches, the underground wiring of Main Street, the planting of trees and flower beds, the construction of Mac Dutra and Kitty Fernandez Parks, and the purchase of garbage receptacles and Christmas lights. Additionally, the committee spends thousands of dollars every year in the on-going maintenance of Main Street. They plant fresh flowers, re-furbish benches, and pay someone to clean up and sweep Main Street every week.
Festival a Civic Undertaking
The festival is a huge civic effort. Some thirty-five non-profit and community service groups participate in the festival by operating food and game booths. For most, the festival is their most lucrative fund-raising event of the year, enabling them to raise a substantial portion of their annual budget from the two-day festival. An estimated $500,000 is raised every year by local community service groups through food, beverage, game and parking sales at the Pumpkin Festival. By providing this opportunity for the non-profit sector, the Pumpkin Festival helps to perpetuate “giving” in the community, no small feat for a town without a base of large corporate donors.
The Pumpkin Industry on the Coast
Every autumn, thousands of Bay Area residents visit the coastside to pick pumpkins from the picturesque fields along Highways 1 and 92. More than 3,000 tons of pumpkins are grown each year by 15 or so commercial growers in the Half Moon Bay area. They ship pumpkins all over the United States and sell to many of the large retailers in the Bay Area. As always, this year there’s a bumper crop.
The pumpkin boom can be traced back to growers in the area who began to plant pumpkins in the 1930′s. In the early 30’s, teenager John Arata and his brother Clarence began planting pumpkin seeds to feed the family’s hogs. One day, they were hauling some of their pumpkins along Highway One back to the farm when a passing motorist stopped and asked if he could buy a few. The Arata’s sold the pumpkins for a quarter and a booming pumpkin-picking business and tourist attraction was born.
Half Moon Bay Beautification Committee Key Facts
- The Main Street Beautification Committee was formed in 1971.
- It was founded as (and still is) an all-volunteer group of civic-minded citizens from the Coastside who wanted to make a lasting contribution to the preservation and beautification of the town’s historic Main Street. Directors have always served without compensation.
- Original Co-Chairs: Dolores Mullin and Edie Phillips.
- The original goal: launch a massive “paint-in” and tree-planting program to revitalize and beautify historic Main Street in downtown Half Moon Bay which, at the time, had decaying buildings and sidewalks; and, to provide a fund-raising opportunity for local non-profit organizations.
- To raise money for their cause, noting the abundance of pumpkin patches in and around Half Moon Bay, the committee decided to organize an old-fashioned, pumpkin-themed festival on Main Street hoping to attract visitors who had come to the coastside to pick Halloween pumpkins.
- For the first two years, the official festival name was “Spanishtown Art & Pumpkin Festival”. It was changed to Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival in 1973.
- The first festival: an estimated 30,000 people attended (promising but small by today’s standards) and one local non-profit group opted to participate as a food vendor.
- Today: the festival draws huge crowds, is among the best-known events in the nation, and more than thirty local non-profits participate.
- Changed its name to Half Moon Bay Beautification Committee and became incorporated in the State of California in 1985.
- Is organized under the Non-Profit Public Benefit Corporation Law for public and charitable purposes and is recognized as a 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
- Trademarked the name “Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival” in 1985.
- Changed its bylaws in the mid-1980s to begin making grants (through an application process) to Coastside non-profit organizations serving children, youth, families, and seniors, as well as for Main Street and community projects, and also to fund annual scholarships for deserving high school students.
- Has contributed an estimated $2.65 million dollars in direct grants and donations since the festival’s inception in 1971. This figure does not include monies raised by non-profit groups that participate in the Pumpkin Festival.
- Has funded a multitude of Main Street projects over the years at no cost to the city including: the renovation of City Hall, the painting of historic buildings, the installation of old-fashioned street lights and wooden benches, the underground wiring of Main Street, the construction of Mac Dutra and Kitty Fernandez Parks, and the purchase of garbage receptacles and Christmas lights. Additionally, the committee spends $25,000 annually on the maintenance and sprucing up of Main Street. Workers hired by the committee plant and maintain fresh flowers, re-furbish benches, and clean up and sweep Main Street every week.
- This year, sponsored the Ol’ Fashioned 4th of July Parade, donated $10,000 to the renovation of the public restrooms in Mac Dutra Park, and provided $9,500 in scholarship monies to Half Moon Bay High School students, bringng scholarship funding to more than $100,000 over the last twenty years.
- Provides the year-round infrastructure, management and expertise organizing a world-class festival that serves as the foundation for an exceptional fund-raising opportunity to more than thirty local non-profit groups through sales of food, beverages, games, activities and parking. For most of the non-profits, the festival is their most lucrative revenue generator of the year, enabling them to fund a substantial portion of their annual budget. An estimated $300,000 is raised every year by non-profit groups. By providing this opportunity to the non-profit sector, the Pumpkin Festival helps to perpetuate “giving” in the community, no small feat for a community without a base of large corporate “donors”.
- Current Board of Directors: Cameron Palmer (President), Naomi Patridge (Vice-President), Melvin Mello Jr. (Treasurer), Kris Mason (Secretary), Bev Ashcraft, Ken Ormonde, John Bianchi, Jerry Donovan, Heidi Kuiper, and Kathy Llorente.
