Benefit pumpkin display returns to Bethel Park home
Members of the Reuschilng family and their friends are ready to carve 231 pumpkins for a cause.
A scene from the 2015 display
Oversight of the pumpkins seems to be in good hands. Or more accurately, paws.
Last year’s pumpkins included one with a football theme.
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
A scene from the 2015 display
Prior to Halloween last year, Amy Reuschling and her family collected 146 pumpkins from a gentleman in Irwin to display on their front law.
They gave him another call this fall.
“He told us, ‘Come again.’ We could take everything that we could get in our car,” Amy said. “So we took two cars.”
Her husband, Rick, guessed that the haul numbered 220.
“He was a little under,” Amy reported. “We have 231.”
The Reuschlings and daughters Mia, Kelly and Maddie will be joined by others – Amy calls them her Pumpkin Posse – to carve the large orange gourds for display in the yard of their home on Eastview Road in Bethel Park, just as they did in 2015.
“Last year, we did it only on Halloween. We had a beautiful night. A lot of people turned out,” Amy said. “I think we were outside until almost 11 o’clock with people.”
This year, they plan the display for Sunday and Monday.
“I figure, we put so much work into them, we might as well have them up two nights,” Amy explained, “Plus it’s two days to try to get donations.”
Last year, the family asked visitors to give toward the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, raising $1,180 toward helping people like Amy, who was diagnosed with MS in 2000.
Except for a hiatus of a few years prior to 2015, the Reuschlings have hosted pumpkin displays since the 1990s, around the time that Amy’s brother, Jeff Yeckel, became a big fan of the Tim Burton holiday crossover film “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
“The movie kind of spoke to me when it came out,” he said. “I really enjoyed it. I had this idea to start something for my nieces, a little tradition that they would look forward to every year.”
This year, his 10-month-old-daughter, Lucy, has the opportunity to join the tradition.
In the meantime, family members and other pumpkin artists will come up with some interesting and often-intricate designs for the display. Previous themes have included Pittsburgh sports teams, Peanuts characters and, of course, Jack Skellington of Halloweentown.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to use them all up,” Amy said about carving all 231. “I think we will, but I’m nervous this year because we have so many.”