Operation Pumpkin’s mission has always been to bring people together in downtown Hamilton to highlight Hamilton’s resurgence, small businesses, restaurants and breweries. For the past several months, the Operation Pumpkin committee has been working to determine the best path forward for the 2020 festival. The top priority is the safety for participating businesses and festival attendees.

With these objectives in mind, the committee has decided to host an altered 2020 Operation Pumpkin Festival. The festival boundary will be expanded to include businesses on Main and High Street. Additionally, Operation Pumpkin 2020 will take place Thursday to Saturday, October 8th-10th.

We will be decorating downtown Hamilton for fall, including placing up to 50 carved-pumpkins in front of businesses, and inviting people to come enjoy and support the many small businesses in Hamilton. Operation Pumpkin will also be coordinating with the schools in Hamilton to deliver pumpkins to all 4th graders.

Due the unpredictability of the virus, Operation Pumpkin will not host the weigh-off, seek vendors, host the Pet Parade or Lil Miss Pumpkin competitions.

We are seeking Event and Great Wall of Pumpkin Sponsors for this year's event.

“We are disappointed we cannot produce the festival as we have for the past 9 years, but if we’ve learned anything over the past 5 months, it is that we all have to do our part to mitigate the risk of this virus,” said Jason Snyder, Operation Pumpkin co-founder. “We know that Operation Pumpkin weekend brings a tremendous amount of economic development to the city. We are hopeful that our efforts will still bring needed energy to businesses while keeping everyone safe.”

In 2021, Operation Pumpkin will be celebrating it’s 10th Anniversary. We plan to host the festival in its entirety next year and will be calling for vendors and sponsors after the first of the year.

For more information about Operation Pumpkin and to learn more about the activities that will take place in 2020 as they are finalized, visit www.operation-pumpkin.org or follow us on Facebook facebook.com/operationpumpkin.