Every October, a patch of grass beside New Hampshire Avenue in Silver Spring fills with pumpkins that traveled roughly two thousand miles to get there. They were grown in New Mexico on land belonging to the Navajo Nation, harvested by Native American crews in September and October, loaded onto trucks and driven east. By the time they are stacked and priced at Transfiguration Parish, they are the largest selection of pumpkins on the avenue — and, for the parish, the point of the whole thing.
Fall Fest at Transfiguration Parish takes place at 13925 New Hampshire Avenue. Admission is free. Everything happens outdoors, rain or shine: food trucks, a bonfire, music, and craft vendors who set up on weekends. The schedule includes a bake sale and scarecrow building on October 17, while the parish thrift shop opens at 10 a.m. that morning. On October 24, carved pumpkins go before the judges at 4 p.m.
The pumpkins are the through-line. The parish describes them as non-GMO, pesticide-free and, for anyone who has ever roasted one, delicious. They come through Pumpkin Patch Fundraisers, a company with an unusual origin story. It began in 1974 with three acres of pumpkins in North Carolina and a handshake agreement with a single church: the church would sell the pumpkins, the growers would grow them, and the proceeds would be shared. There were no contracts and no lawyers. Richard and Janice Hamby kept at it year after year, absorbing the costs of growing, harvesting and shipping, and even the risk of theft or spoilage, so that partner organizations could simply run a patch.
Then Hurricane Hugo hit North Carolina. The operation relocated to the Navajo Nation near Farmington, New Mexico, and it has been there since. Today the company farms roughly 1,200 acres — nearly two square miles — of pumpkins in cooperation with the Navajo Nation. More than 700 Native Americans are employed during the September-to-October harvest, and the full-time New Mexico staff is entirely Native American. In a region with significant unemployment, that seasonal work is the reason the model matters. What started with one congregation has grown into a network of more than 1,000 organizations across the continental United States, spanning some 25 denominations along with schools, youth groups, Scouts, Habitat groups, Knights of Columbus councils and other civic organizations.
For Transfiguration, the pumpkin sale is one expression of a parish that has long treated its grounds as a public resource. The Episcopal congregation at 13925 New Hampshire Avenue describes its mission as "Uniting Diverse People. Serving One God," and its membership reflects the wider Washington region: people from the Caribbean, from across Africa and beyond, worshipping together under the Rev. Noreen Dubay. The parish supports more than a dozen missions and ministries, is a founding member of C4, and hosts several Christian congregations in its buildings during the week. Its Scout troop has produced more than 160 Eagle Scouts over a history spanning more than 50 years.
The thrift shop that opens early on October 17 is itself a 501(c)(3) of the parish. It accepts gently used clothing and household goods and sells them at low cost to neighbors, some of whom ship items back to their home countries to help people in need; proceeds support the parish's outreach programs. The bake sale, the scarecrows and the carved-pumpkin contest all feed the same pot.
What makes the festival distinctive is the distance built into it. A pumpkin bought at a supermarket is anonymous. A pumpkin bought here carries a specific provenance: a farm on the Navajo Nation, a harvest crew paid for its work, a shipping arrangement that puts the risk on the grower rather than the church, and a handshake agreement now more than fifty years old. The parish's own framing is modest — harvest, cool weather, fun — but the economics underneath are a small, durable arrangement between a congregation in suburban Maryland and a farming operation in the Southwest.
The event is unticketed and has no capacity limit, which suits its nature. People come for a pumpkin and stay for the bonfire. Children drag sticks and straw into something roughly scarecrow-shaped. On the last Saturday, pumpkins come back carved, and someone wins. It is a fall festival of the ordinary kind, held on a lawn beside a busy road, with the unusual distinction that the squash in the pile has a story longer than the drive most visitors made to reach it.