The Career and Technical Education Department hosted the first annual Pumpkin Festival on Saturday, Oct 29. Various clubs and classes sold food, drinks, and more to fundraise and promote membership in their particular programs.

“We’re hoping to get community awareness for our career-technical area, and also for our career-technical student organizations, and to raise money for our service projects. Our coffee shop is going to help send kids to state conference,” said Family Careers Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) sponsor Robyn Sherman.

The other clubs at the event, including Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Future Farmers of America (FFA), Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA), and more shared the same goals for working at the festival.

“We hope it to be an annual event because it benefits all of the CTE programs,” said FFA sponsor Lisa Martin. “CTE programs provide learning experiences that most of the time are more hands-on, so for students who learn better in that type of setting, it becomes easier for them to feel successful.”

An undisclosed amount of funds from the Pumpkin Festival will sponsor CTE scholarships.

“Our goal is to raise money for the Career and Technical Education scholarships, and the scholarships are given to RCHS students to be able to attend dual enrollment at Dabney S. Lancaster,” said Assistant Principal Dr. Angela Wilder. “Fortunately, Dabney has agreed to allow our students to take a credit-bearing class for only 75 dollars, and although that might not seem like much, it is significant for some of our students, and we want finances not to be a barrier to higher education.”

The Pumpkin Festival is also a way for the school to be more involved in the community.

“I wanted to bring the community to the school, and connect the school to the community. We have some great programs, like auto and business and culinary, and we need money and projects to work on that are real-world,” said CTE director Steven Wilder, the creator of the Pumpkin Festival. “We have so many different flavors in our high school of what people want to do with their lives, and Career and Technical Education answers most of those.”

“Many of those students are going to go on to have successful careers in our community, in more of the vocational trades rather than the academic world,” said Martin. “We’re hoping that they will be successful contributing members to the community.”

In addition to the vendors, the Pumpkin Festival featured pumpkin catapults, games for kids, music, and a Halloween-themed dance by Halestone Dance Studio. The festival was well-attended, but Wilder hopes it will gain more support and attendance over the years.