Every October, a stretch of New Hampshire Avenue in Silver Spring turns into something like a small country fairground. The lawn at Transfiguration Episcopal Church fills with pumpkins — not a few bins of them, but what the parish bills as the biggest selection on New Hampshire Avenue. The annual Fall Fest runs October 23 through October 30, 2026, from noon to 7 p.m. daily, and it is free. Everything happens outdoors, rain or shine, which is either a warning or an invitation depending on how you feel about a bonfire in a drizzle.
The pumpkins are the centerpiece, and they come with a story longer than most church fundraisers can claim. They are grown in New Mexico by the Navajo Nation, and they arrive in Maryland through a company called Pumpkin Patch Fundraisers. That business 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. No contracts, no lawyers. Richard and Janice Hamby kept at it year after year. Today the operation is a contractor located at Navajo Agricultural Products Industry near Farmington, New Mexico, and it employs more than 700 Native Americans during harvest season.
The model has since grown into a nationwide network of partner organizations — churches, schools, youth groups and the like — that sell the pumpkins each fall. What started with one church in North Carolina now supplies patches from coast to coast, including this one in Silver Spring.
The parish's own description of the pumpkins is specific: non-GMO, pesticide free and, in its words, delicious. That last claim is worth taking seriously — these are pie pumpkins as much as jack-o'-lanterns, and the festival leans into both uses. On October 24 at 4 p.m., there is a carved pumpkin judging, which is the moment the decorative ambitions of the neighborhood get publicly evaluated.
There is more than squash. Food trucks rotate through the week, and the parish's published vendor schedule gives a sense of the range: Positive Vibes serving Jamaican food, DM Slider, and a rotating cast of craft vendors including Miss B's Crafty Corner ("all sorts of bling"), Laila's Arts & Crafts with handmade jewelry and Christmas ornaments, and the Painted, Pasted and Photographed artist collective showing photographs, paintings and art. On October 25, VGM Jams brings a video game music jam — a genre of live performance that is exactly as odd and charming as it sounds. Crafts vendors set up on weekends, and there is music and a bonfire in the evenings.
Earlier in the season, on October 17, the parish also holds a scarecrow-building afternoon — free sticks and straw provided, with building at 2 p.m. and judging at 4 p.m. — paired with a bake sale, and the parish thrift shop opens at 10 a.m. that day. The thrift shop is worth a mention on its own: it is a 501(c)(3) organization of Transfiguration Parish, accepting gently used clothing and household goods and selling them at low cost to neighbors, some of whom send items back to their homelands to help people in need. Proceeds support the parish's outreach programs.
That outreach orientation is not incidental to who Transfiguration is. The parish describes its congregation as reflecting "the beautiful diversity of God's world," with members from many racial, cultural and national backgrounds, including the Caribbean and Africa. Its mission statement is three words long: "Uniting Diverse People. Serving One God." The church hosts several other Christian congregations in its buildings during the week, is a founding member of C4, supports more than a dozen missions and ministries, and has sponsored a Scout troop that has celebrated more than 160 Eagle Scouts over a history of more than 50 years. The Rev. Noreen Dubay is the parish priest.
All of which makes the Fall Fest feel less like a fundraiser bolted onto a church calendar and more like the parish's front yard opened to the block. There are no tickets, no capacity limit, no gate. You can drop in for twenty minutes to buy a pumpkin, or stay through the evening for the bonfire. The pumpkins are the draw, but the arrangement behind them — a New Mexico farm, a handshake from 1974, a Silver Spring lawn — is the part worth knowing.
The festival runs daily from noon to 7 p.m., October 23 through October 30, 2026, at 13925 New Hampshire Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland. Admission is free. It is outdoors and it happens rain or shine, so dress accordingly.