The Great Pumpkins: Bethel Park family carves for a cause
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Amy Reuschling began showing magnificent jack-o’-lantern displays in her East View yard years ago, and the spooktacular scene this year boasts between 300 and 350 gourd artworks. Reuschling’s display delights the community, and doubles as a fundraiser for the National MS Society.
Photos: Courtesy of Amy Reuschling
The Pumpkin Posse spends an evening hand-carving jack-o’-lanterns ahead of last year’s show. Neighbors, relatives and the community donate meals to the group, which crafts carved pumpkins around the clock in the days leading up to Oct. 30.
Courtesy of Amy Reuschling
Courtesy of Amy Reuschling
A Pumpkin Posse volunteer lights the ginormous pumpkin display before the show begins last year. This year, folks can see the pumpkin show Oct. 30 and 31 along East View Road in Bethel Park.
Courtesy of Amy Reuschling
Courtesy of Amy Reuschling
The Pumpkin Posse Carves for a Cause, and has in six years raised about $30,000 for the National MS Society. Donations will again be collected this year, but Amy Reuschling said the show is free, and any money raised is simply bonus.
Courtesy of Amy Reuschling
The pumpkin display dazzles as night falls last year. Folks are invited to see the display this year along East View Road in Bethel Park on Oct. 30 and 31.
It’s the great pumpkin display, Bethel Park.
On Oct. 30 and 31, hundreds and hundreds of elaborate, hand-carved jack-o’-lanterns will light up a front yard along East View Road in Bethel Park, and folks from near and far are invited to witness the spooktacular scene.
“People decorate for Halloween, but not like this,” smiled Amy Reuschling, who grew up on East View and is known locally as the Pumpkin Lady (or Queen, as she jokingly prefers). “Last year, we did 396 (pumpkins), which about killed us. This year, we’re doing between 300 and 350. Whatever we get done, we get done.”
Reuschling and her Pumpkin Posse, as she lovingly calls the 12 family members and close friends who help her with the project each year, picked up winter squashes from their “Pumpkin Angel,” an area farmer who wishes to remain anonymous, Thursday.
In the days leading up to showtime, the Pumpkin Posse will gut and carve around the clock, crafting between 50 and 60 masterpieces daily, stopping only to share laughs, adult beverages and fabulous dinners donated by relatives, neighbors and community members.
“We work like dogs for six days,” Reuschling said. “There’s 12 core people that do this. All but two of us are Bethel alumni.”
Pumpkins will be lit around 6 p.m. Oct. 30, and for two days East View will be one-way from Church Road to Logan Road, to ease congestion. The Bethel Park Police Department will be on site, along with crossing guards at both intersections to direct visitors.
“It is well-attended. We’re very blessed,” Reuschling said. “My favorite part of everything is the two days we have them out, listening to everybody as they look at them. They really are spectacular when they’re lit up.”
Reuschling’s renowned pumpkin display began years ago, when her three daughters, Mia, Kelly and Maddie, were little.
“I think we started with maybe 10 pumpkins, and at that point everybody thought we were crazy,” said Kelly Reuschling, who helps carve every October. “They were like, 10 pumpkins? You’re carving 10 pumpkins? Then it would go to 100 and people were like, I can’t imagine. It’s just kind of her. She’s been involved in, like, so much anyways with us that it’s just kind of how she is.”
Reuschling joked that her husband, Rick, who once broke ribs during the pumpkin carving palooza, is a saint for helping set up the ever-changing display year after year. As the pumpkin show has grown, so too has its reason for being.
The Pumpkin Posse’s motto is Carving for a Cause, and during the two-day show, Reuschling collects donations for the National MS Society.
“We started (the pumpkin display) years and years ago. Doing it this way, in this large number and collecting money, I think this is the sixth year. I said to everybody, if we’re working like this and we’re doing this many pumpkins and everybody’s coming to see them, we could ask people to donate,” said Reuschling, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2000. “It’s a totally free event. The donation part is just something that’s above and beyond what we do.”
In six years, the Pumpkin Posse has raised about $30,000 for the MS Society. The organization sometimes sends folks to carve a pumpkin or two alongside Reuschling and her tribe, and kids who visit the display Halloween weekend leave with bracelets or other MS Society merchandise.
In past years, celebrities like Joe Exotic and icons like Marilyn Monroe have graced pumpkins. This year, those who cruise East View will marvel at intricate mandalas, smile at beloved Disney characters and delight at ghoulish faces blazing from Reuschling’s yard.
“This is always a crowd pleaser: a pig roast,” said Reuschling, whose crew carves a pumpkin pig on a spit above flame-themed pumpkins, each year.
Corgis make the display every year (the Reuschlings have three) and this year, those smiling pups will be joined in a tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II, the Crown Mother of Corgis.
“We’re doing a whole bunch of in memoriam pumpkins this year,” said Reuschling. “We’re doing the queen, of course. Betty White, Olivia Newton-John. Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), because he just passed the other day. Angela Lansbury. And then a girl that my husband and I grew up with was actually an MS Warrior and she passed on Oct. 5, so we’re going to do a pumpkin for her.”
For years the pumpkin display has been confined to the Reuschlings’ front yard, but this year artful jack-o’-lanterns will smile or scowl from a neighbor’s lawn, too, so visitors have more space to admire the works.
Because truly, these pumpkins are ephemeral works of art. Some take more than five hours to carve, and the masterpieces last only a few days before succumbing to mold, deer or the weather.
But for as long as they last, “they are spectacular,” Reuschling said.
Reuschling looks forward to seeing visitors old and new this year, and said it’s the people and this pumpkin show’s impact that make the crazy undertaking worthwhile.
“It’s definitely a labor of love. It’s very fun because we have a very tight core group of people that do it. It is something that we look forward to every year but, in the next breath, we don’t look forward to it because it is a ton of work. People only see it for the two days it’s out. But it’s literally seven days, it’s months of planning, but it’s seven days of really hard work,” she said.
“We’re all proud of the money that we’ve raised. Hearing the kids loving it, seeing something that they like. It’s fun. You’ve got to come and see it.”