Vandergrift children's garden grows on without stolen pumpkins

Vandergrift has its own Great Pumpkin Caper.

About two weeks ago, pumpkins planted by children in the borough’s Franklin Park started to vanish. At least 10 have gone missing since, likely taken in broad daylight because the park is locked at night.

“They weren’t even orange,” said Chloe Kruse, a member of the Vandergrift Parent Project, through which an estimated 50 children planted pumpkins and other vegetables in five raised gardens.

Melissa Adams, another member of the Vandergrift Parent Project, said she suspected that kids goofing around took the pumpkins.

Footage captured by a surveillance camera showed otherwise.

“A man, a woman and child picked (a pumpkin) and walked out of the park,” said Adams, who captured the video about a week ago.

Kruse said the group released the video footage to Vandergrift police. She said police advised the group not to publicly release the video.

Vandergrift Patrolman Richard Gray said police tracked down the adults in the video, but do not plan to file any charges against them.

“It was a total misunderstanding,” Gray said, adding that the adults in the video thought they could take the pumpkin because it was in a community garden.

It’s unknown who took the other pumpkins, according to Gray.

It was a blow for parents who formed the group about two years ago to provide social and learning opportunities for local children. They are pursuing funding to establish themselves as a nonprofit.

Members of the group know the heists aren’t a serious crime, but they are upset nonetheless given that the children worked hard on the garden, Kruse said.

“The stealing is disheartening,” said Andrea Woodhall, a Penn State master gardener who lives in Oklahoma borough.

The Parent Project used a little money they raised, along with donations and volunteers, to put their five raised gardens together in the spring.

Woodhall tapped other master gardeners, assembling plants and seeds, including pumpkins, watermelons, peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos, dinosaur kale and herbs like lavender, sage, tarragon and basil.

“The whole reason was to feed kids, to provide them with fresh vegetables,” Kruse said

The group also wanted to use pumpkins grown in the park for a Pumpkin Patch event around Halloween, when children can get free pumpkins to decorate. Last year, the group bought more than 100 pumpkins for the event.

Volunteers began putting the garden together on Earth Day this year.

Borough children, along with Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts, helped clean up the site and work on the gardens.

“Those kids worked their butts off and they loved it,” Adams said.

Families signed up to water the garden regularly. The volunteer fire department across the street filled up rain barrels to supply the water.

Parents said the children learned about gardening as they moved through the growing season, like when the garden was inundated with weeds that the children and adults discovered were no fun to clean out. The Kiski Garden Center in Allegheny Township solved that problem and donated straw, which substantially cut down on the weeds.

Then there were the lovable but pesky bunnies. Makeshift fencing stopped them for the most part.

The group plans to set up a harvest day, with or without pumpkins.