The physics club at Elon University raised $100 and collected 90 food items Nov. 4 in its first ever “Great Pumpkin Toss” on the fields of south campus. Dozens of families turned out for the event, where the student club used a trebuchet to launch old pumpkins toward a compost heap nearly a football field away.
Not all the pumpkins made the distance. They instead fell to earth where they splattered on impact to the delight of children whose jack-‘o-lanterns acted as cannon fodder for the catapult-like device.
Organizers saw the event as a way to raise money for the Loaves & Fishes Christian Food Ministry in Burlington while helping to dispose of old pumpkins in an environmentally friendly manner.
The (Greensboro, N.C.) News & Record and Fox 8 WGHP in High Point, N.C., covered the event. Their stories can be read and viewed by clicking the links below. The Times-News in Burlington spread word of the event with a Nov. 1 story.
