Pumpkins for the Planet

In the week following Halloween, we collect carved and intact pumpkins in Ottawa South and help distribute them to local farms, food centers and kitchens. In doing so, we combat food insecurity while diverting them from the City compost facility and the landfill. Click here to learn more about our super successful year in 2024.

Volunteer with us!

We’d love to have your help! Contact us any time during the year to ask to be added to the specific Pumpkins for the Planet volunteer mailing list, or sign up for our newsletter to get updates and volunteer callouts for all of our projects. Or just reach out directly and tell us how you want to help!

For up to date info about this year’s 2026 pumpkins for the planet, browse our blog post.

For Details on what to do with your pumpkin after halloween, please consult this blog post.

Sign up for 2026 using our Volunteer Form

Possible individual volunteer roles:

  • Volunteer Team: Reaching out to individuals who fill in our form and help assign task (you will be working in a team, with the support of the Pumpkin Leads). This is mostly email, but can also be some phone conversations)

  • Food Rescue Team: Contacting Food Centres and coordinating how many intact pumpkins they want. (Emailing and talking on the phone)

  • General Logistics (keeping track of dates, drafting emails for newsletters etc) (administrative tasks that can be done from home)

  • Social Media Promotion (making Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn or Reddit posts, designing posters, editing posters for Instagram)

  • NEW! Satellite Collection Site (we can only accommodate 5-7 sites this year). This means we need individuals who want to collect from their neighbours or streets and bring to the nearest Community Collection Site -off And put up signs around your neighbourhood

  • Food Security (working to make sure intact pumpkins get to humans)

  • Pumpkin Lifter (help load pumpkins onto vehicles - AKA give me a date and time and I'll be there)

  • Volunteer at PumpkinFest on Sunday Nov 8th

Roles for farms / rescues

  • If you have a farm with animals that love pumpkins or are looking to amend your soil with some nutritious pumpkin parts, please email us or fill in our google form specifically for farms!

Become a Pumpkin Partner!

One of our biggest challenges for pumpkins is transporting them to Pumpkin Alley (759 Springland Dr) from the collection sites and then to the local farms. We are thankful for the past partnership with 1-800-GOT-JUNK? which helps us deliver hundreds of pumpkins every year to farms. But we require a new partner!

If your business or organization owns an insured dump truck or trailer and can help us transport more pumpkins from local collection sites in Ottawa South to pumpkin alley you will help us increase our capacity to accept more pumpkins and we would be pleased to feature you in all of our Pumpkins for the Planet promotion.

For this year’s collection sites visit our blog post.

This year Community Associations are hosting their own pumpkin collections this year!

We are only as successful as our volunteers and the local businesses that are helping us distribute and rehome pumpkins!

It is always a pleasure to work with Riverview Park Community Association, Alta Vista Community Association, Hunt Club Community Association - HCCA, Riverside Park Community Association - RPCA, Foodsharing Ottawa, Uplands Community Council, and Riverview Park Community Association.

A huge thank you to the following local businesses for their support in 2024:

We are so happy to help the following organizations battle food insecurity with powerhouse pumpkins

We are glad our pumpkins are going to help fill the bellies and supplement the soil of these farms!