The Colorado Farmer Who Gave Kids a Million Pumpkins

In the 1950s, a Colorado Springs farmer named Nick Venetucci parked his truck on a downtown street and gave free pumpkins to local children. He kept giving for about 50 years, and the total passed a million.

The Truck on Tejon Street

Venetucci first handed out pumpkins by parking his truck on Tejon Street, according to the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. The giveaway grew after a teacher asked to bring students out to the farm.

Soon school buses were making the trip every fall. By the museum's count, the Venetuccis hosted 40,000 to 50,000 schoolchildren a year, and Wikipedia puts the yearly range at 30,000 to 50,000.

Nick walked the children around the farm. His wife, Bambi, handled the schedule and the bus groups.

A Million Pumpkins

His giveaway ran from the 1950s until 2002, and the total is estimated at more than 1 million pumpkins. Every child on a school visit went home with one.

His own harvest ended when a drought left him unable to grow pumpkins. "I can't control the weather," Venetucci said. "With the drought, there was no way I could grow pumpkins."

The Kids Paid Him Back in Pennies

A "Pennies for Pumpkins" drive by 15 area school districts funded a bronze sculpture of him. Titled "Dominico T. Venetucci: The Pumpkin Man," it stands on the north grounds of the Pioneer Museum in Colorado Springs, a farmer in a brimmed hat handing a pumpkin to a child.

Sources disagree on the cost. Wikipedia says schoolchildren's pennies paid for a $100,000 statue, while the Colorado Springs Gazette reports $34,000 raised by schoolchildren and alumni. Either way, it was the children who paid for it.

The Giveaway Outlived the Harvest

Venetucci died in 2004 at age 93. Around then he had leased the farm to a community foundation, and the farm's later stewards carried the pumpkin tradition on.

Venetucci Farm no longer grows the giveaway pumpkins. Toxic PFAS chemicals found in the Widefield aquifer ended crop farming there about a decade ago, and the pumpkins now come from Milberger Farms in Pueblo.

The giveaway itself did not stop. This October, school field trips to the farm run on weekdays, and each child receives a pumpkin, according to Colorado Public Radio. The foundation that owns the farm says neither Nick nor Bambi was wealthy, yet "they gave so freely to the community."