If you’re wondering what to do with your pumpkins now that Halloween is over, an Ottawa organization has a solution for you. The Ottawa South Eco-Action Network (OSEAN) is holding its annual Pumpkins for the Planet program, collecting old Halloween pumpkins for distribution to combat food insecurity and keep them out of the landfill. Residents are being asked to bring pumpkins to one of the eight collection sites in Ottawa’s south end, with Ernie Calcutt Park being the main site. “We ask people to bring carved pumpkins and intact pumpkins. The carved pumpkins go to farms for farm animals to eat. The intact ones, we start off sending them to community kitchens,” said OSEAN member Lynne Patenaude. Janine Beauchesne’s says she heard about the program while browsing online. “It’s a great program because there’s so many of us that carve pumpkins and we feel bad afterwards. You throw it out. This is a great way to use them for something good. I think it’s great,” said Beauchesne. Pumpkins that are too moldy for consumption will go to farms for land application to help amend the soil. The program started in one of OSEAN’s volunteers’ driveways after didn’t like to see pumpkins going into the garbage and not being used to their full extent. The volunteer started collecting them before the group got behind the initiative. “It’s a lovely idea, isn’t it? You get to look at them rather than them just going in the green bin. I’m happy with that,” said Sue Bubb, who was dropping off pumpkins on Monday. “It’s just not going to be junk.” OSEAN says it’s collecting the whole pumpkins that aren’t carved yet for the community kitchens first before distributing them to the community. “Lots of people are interested in cooking with pumpkins, and they may come here and see these. We’d ask you to wait if you’re interested in taking pumpkin, so that we can make sure we have enough pumpkins for the community kitchens that we’ve promised them to,” said Patenaude. OSEAN says once they’re done with distribution, they will notify the community when anyone can take leftover pumpkins on their Facebook and Instagram pages.
