Evans City welcomes autumn with PumpkinFest
EVANS CITY — No one was happier Saturday, Sept. 24, when the first day of Evans City’s PumpkinFest kicked off than Pam Greenawalt. She’s only been helping plan the event since February.
“I breathed a sigh of relief, ” said Greenawalt, the owner of P&B’s Sweets and Eats, 243 E. Main St. “It’s been going very smoothly.”
“We have 80 crafters and artisans. We have food vendors. We’ve had wonderful marketing,” she said.
One of those marketers and a part of the ad hoc committee of businesses and volunteers organizing the inaugural PumpkinFest was Molly Difione of Jackson Township.
“We moved to the area, and I wanted to get involved in the community, so I joined the PumpkinFest,” Difione said.
Difione’s marketing efforts brought Mike and Earlene Hillenbrand, of Pittsburgh, to Evans City with their Steel City Sprayart booth.
Mike Hillenbrand said this was their very first festival showing off his spray-art pictures and his wife’s glass-block light displays.
“I started this as a COVID hobby,” he said. He uses spray paint, mostly Rustoleum he said, and sponges and stencils to create pictures on canvas, posterboard and even surfboards.
“When I was younger, I did oil paintings. I saw someone do it (spray art) on You Tube and thought I’d try it,” he said.
He prefers to do landscapes but in honor of the upcoming spooky season, his booth also displayed scarecrows, “Halloween’s” Michael Myers and zombies.
“We had to have zombies for Evans City,” Earlene Hillenbrand said.
Rekha Raine, of Zelienople, was offering a different kind of art at her henna tattoo booth.
She said her henna designs, which can be applied to hands, arms, shoulders and ankles, are temporary and use plant-based natural materials.
She said she has been doing henna tattoos since she was a child. She has a patterns that customers can use to pick a tattoo.
“I do have patterns. A lot of people want to know what’s going to be on their hands,” she said. “I can do a tattoo in five to 10 minutes. It doesn’t take too long.” The tattoos themselves will last about a week before fading or being washed off.
In addition to festivals, she makes house calls.
“I go to people’s houses for birthday parties and girls’ nights out,” she said.
Danita Ostrander, owner of Dea’s Decor of Beaver, was getting into the spirit of the season with her Halloween-themed wreaths, some featuring Jason Voorhees of the “Friday the13th” movies and the demonic clown Pennywise from “It.”
“Pennywise is very popular. I’ve sold 41 so far this year starting in June,” she said.
Less scary offerings were on display at the children’s games tent run by volunteers from Evan City’s Gospel Life Church.
Keith Reagan, the ministry director of the church, said children could play seven different games to score points and turn their collective scores in to collect prizes.
“We’ve had 30 volunteers helping by running the games or making the games,” he said. Members donated the hay bales and pumpkins used in the games.
Across Main Street, Patty Tumminello-Murphy and her fellow Evans City Lions Club members were manning the club’s booth.
“We’ve got push brooms, whisks and toy brooms. The businesses came up with a coupon book. We’ve got fire starters and trash bags,” she said. The Lions were also selling tickets for a raffle for two massive wooden dollhouses donated to the club by Linda Schietamanntel of Evans City complete with furniture. The drawing was scheduled to take place at 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
Attendee Sheila Mue, of Evans City, was taking in all the art and crafts on display up and down Main Street.
“This is a very great town, and I want to be supportive of everything they do,” she said. “They’ve been great to me since I moved here.”
Organizer Difione said, “Our goal is to have it again next year. I think it was a great community effort pulling together residents and businesses.”
