I'm George Demchak and I'm here on behalf
of the Howard Volunteer Fire Company.
And I'm speaking about the Howard Volunteer Fire Company's
Fall Punkin Chunkin Festival.
This will be our ninth year.
In the beginning, I was thinking of a fundraiser
for the fire company.
And you know, a fall fundraiser, a festival, came to mind.
But, fall festivals are kind of a dime a dozen.
So you really need something special.
One day when I was driving, I was thinking about
the pumpkin chunking, that I saw on television
and I thought, "You know, we could bring that here."
Talk about something unique!
And a draw.
People really embraced it and we're really
thrilled to have it.
We started relatively modest.
I believe we started out with maybe 50 craft vendors
and a few food vendors.
We had 10,000 people show up that year,
for our grand opening event.
We almost had to postpone the event the first year.
You know, where do you find a launching machine
that can hurl an eight to 10 pound pumpkin,
600, 800, 1100 feet, at break neck speed,
so it just splashes into the lake?
Someone probably an hour and a half away from here,
he's a school teacher and his class had built one.
They said they would bring it.
They canceled on me at the last minute.
As luck would have it, we had a brand new member,
an engineer by trade.
I remember the look on his face, he was there, "I can
build one of those."
We had our own machine and we were in business.
The festival has grown now, where we actually
attract nationally recognized launching teams.
Teams come from Ohio, New Hampshire, Delaware,
to come to our event.
But we also attract a wide variety
of local launching machines.
We've gotten fantastic support from DCNR and Bald
Eagle State Park.
The pumpkins are donated from a nearby Amish farm.
Part of our arrangement with the park,
is when the pumpkins splash down in the lake,
we pick up all those floating pumpkins.
We bring them back to shore.
They are trucked back over to the Amish farm,
where it goes to the pigs for food.
You know, volunteer fire companies
across the nation, are in real distress right now.
The amount of money that comes from townships
and municipalities and any kind of tax,
in our area, only makes up 17 percent of our annual budget.
When Punkin Chunkin' started, it brought in $12,000
the first year.
We're averaging close to $25,000, each year after that.
The apparatus has been upgraded.
The safety equipment which the responders wear,
have been updated.
Also, by having an increase in funding,
we're now able to have our members attend more training
which in turn makes it safer for everyone.
The public has asked us to make it a two-day event.
We would love to.
I would love to see maybe schools,
or different groups, build their own launching machines,
come and compete in different age groups.
But, right now, we just don't have the membership,
the volunteers, to sustain that.
So, if we can get more members, we'd like to see this
thing really blossom into more than what we have now,
although we are quite thankful for what it is.