St. Jude Pumpkin Patch fundraiser starts Thursday

St. Jude Thaddeus School's Pumpkin Patch is returning for its third annual event this week, starting Thursday from 4 to 7 p.m. and continuing through Saturday.

"The pumpkin patch is a carnival, and it is centered around the selling of pumpkins for Halloween," St. Jude Thaddeus School Principal Mike Haugen said. "We have pumpkins of various sizes that are put in our courtyard where people come and purchase those."

He said the pumpkin patch is a way to serve the community of Havre providing a family atmosphere for Havre which is really popular and to raise money for the school.

All proceeds received from the Pumpkin Patch will go back toward the school, he added.

"It's a real family event," Haugen said. "There will be a petting zoo, we will have a little train they can drive or take rides on, a hay ride, face painting, a bake sale, a craft sale and I only hit part of the things they are doing."

Knights of Columbus will be serving food at the event.

The price for each pumpkin sold will be based on the pumpkin's size, he said.

Most of the pumpkins were donated by Bob's Greenhouse, which gave the seeds and use of land in his greenhouse nursery to the school to grow pumpkins, and the rest were purchased from Gary & Leo's Fresh Foods.

He added that the core group that puts on the Pumpkin Patch to help raise money for St. Jude Thaddeus School is the Home and School Association, which also puts on other of activities to raise money for the school.

Home and School Association President Patricia Blanchard said the role of the group is to help the students of the school and to make communication between the school and the parents.

She added that a gun raffle will also be held during the Pumpkin Patch with the winner's choice of a handgun or rifle as well as a half-beef raffle where the winner will receive a half of beef with processing. Tickets for both the gun and half of beef raffles are $10 each.

Another raffle at $1 per ticket will be for items donated by community businesses put together in packages.

"Every year (the Pumpkin Patch) gets bigger, so we don't know what to expect. I bet there's going to be a lot of people there, I'm sure, and hopefully the weather holds out for us," Blanchard said.

"I just like the family atmosphere and so the children have a lot of fun," Haugen said. "Again it's very family-friendly and the amount of volunteers that we have working is amazing. So you have everything from Northern Lights and Skylights basketball teams working here and we also have many families from St. Jude's who volunteer to help put it on."

The Pumpkin Patch continues Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day.