LHS’s chapter of The National Art Honor Society (NAHS) is known for its various artistic endeavors that help to benefit the community. Its largest and most successful event every year is Night of the Pumpkins, which happened on Oct 18. Night of the Pumpkins is a culmination of all the hard work of NAHS, and Michael Kunz, NAHS’s advisor, is passionate about the success of the event.
The Night of the Pumpkins is a lead-up to Halloween, allowing for families within the community to observe the hard work of many LHS students, while also benefiting a great cause. This year, the NAHS chose to raise proceeds for Island Harvest, a hunger-relief organization with a mission to end hunger and reduce food waste on Long Island. With the help of various clubs at the high school and the generous purchases and donations at the event, the NAHS was able to raise $3,800.
In terms of set up, every year, every member of NAHS and many other LHS students take part in “The Hollowing,” which occurs the Friday before Night of the Pumpkins. It is a renowned event every year, where students hollow out 200 pumpkins that will then be carved by the members of NAHS. It provides students with the opportunity to earn community service hours while also bonding with friends. NAHS Secretary and senior Zia Baluyot has been a member of NAHS for three years and is bittersweet about her final year: “The Hollowing is definitely special because it allows for people who may not otherwise be involved in NAHS to help, and that means a lot to all of us.”
After The Hollowing, every member of NAHS takes home at least two pumpkins, with the officers taking home seven each. From there, they let their creative juices flow, as the sky’s the limit for their designs. Carvings range from classic Jack-O-Lanterns, to soccer balls, to movie characters. Each pumpkin is unique with each artist’s creativity incorporated.
Once done with carving pumpkins, NAHS members returned back to the high school at 9am the day of Night of the Pumpkins in order to set up for the event. This consists of arranging the pumpkins on their path out to the high school field, setting up the courtyard with snacks and games for kids to enjoy, and packing the cafeteria with décor. While the night lasted from 6pm-8pm, NAHS members worked hard all day with only a 2-3 hour break before the night commenced.
Upon visitors’ arrival, there were a number of activities for children and families to enjoy, including a raffle for many different types of baskets, face-painting, fortune-telling, lawn games, and coloring sheets.
In addition to these activities, the Diversity Council and Environmental Clubs added their own stations in the cafeteria to involve kids of the community to learn about their clubs. The Diversity Council brought sugar skull ornaments to decorate in order to teach people about Dia de los Muertos, and also about Hispanic Heritage Month. The Environmental Club had an activity centered around nature and recycling that involved leaves and leftover toilet paper tubes. This allowed them to teach the community about a cause important to them, through the vice of art which is a major goal of NAHS as well.
One of the most important jobs of the entire night is pumpkin maintenance. This job has the most people supervising it every year, and consists of NAHS members keeping inventory and making sure the pumpkins are displayed as beautifully as possible. Each pumpkin has a coat tag on it, and when someone wants to buy a pumpkin, he/she gets the attention of an NAHS member and keeps the number on the tag to then claim it at the end of the night. Junior Gianna Marafioti has done this job for the past two years. She said, “It will never get old watching the kids and their parents pick out their pumpkins. Seeing them get so excited makes all of our hard work feel worth it.” Sophomore Shayla Benn, participated in her first Night of the Pumpkins this year, and said, “It was so exciting to finally be a part of [Night of the Pumpkins] because it is so cool to see how the community comes together for it.”
This was definitely a special year at Night of the Pumpkins, as Kunz shared that this was one of the smoothest years he has seen so far, and that he is immensely proud of everyone’s hard work.
