If there’s one thing the men’s lacrosse team does right, it’s Halloween. With a reputation for having unique group-wide costumes every year, such as Power Rangers and Spidermen in the last two, the team goes above and beyond to bring the Halloween spirit in any way they can. This Halloween is not any different, with the team lending their hand to the community.
Earlier this month, members of the men’s lacrosse team were asked by the Trinity Reformed Church UCC to assist them in unloading the 800 pumpkins being delivered for their annual pumpkin sale. “The people from the church came over to us about ten minutes before the pumpkin delivery truck got there, and they asked me and a couple of the other guys if we could come help out with pumpkins getting delivered,” commented Nate Groody ’26. “We sent a text to our GroupMe asking anybody who was free to show up to the church and help unload pumpkins. We had a turnout of about 40 guys out of 45 on the team.” The team was not initially planning on doing this, but quickly jumped to action when some of the members of the church came over to Maples Hall requesting help. “We all randomly showed up outside of Maples and all these pumpkins were there. They asked us to help, and we helped them,” said Chris Forgie ’27. They were joined for part of this unloading by members of Phi Kappa Sigma, and give thanks to them for the help they provided.
In order to tackle the massive number of pumpkins at hand, the team split up into two main groups: one tasked with unloading the pumpkins from the pickup trucks and stacking them on pallets, and the other tasked with loading the pumpkins from there to their designated spots. “We did it assembly-line style, so we did all 40 guys in a line passing the pumpkin from one guy to another and it just made it really fun because everyone was involved,” remarked Harry Sweitzer ’26. With Halloween music to get everybody in the right mindset, the team tackled the unloading process with ease.
Groody also credited some key contributors from the event. “There were two guys, Matt Callahan ’26 and Ryan Dever ’25, who got in the back of the pumpkin trailer and were literally taking the pumpkins off the ground and throwing them to the front of the trailer so we could get them out.” Callahan shared his experience with this: “I think I single-handedly moved at least 500 pumpkins. It was a lot of work, but it was for a good cause.” This continued for a rotation of 3 pickup trucks, and a whopping 800 pumpkins in total. Liam Behnke ’25, praised Callahan for this feat. “Matt Callahan was 100% pumpkin moving MVP. He spent the entire time in the back of a 95 degree trailer and lifted every pumpkin.” Bringing this sense of community to their team and getting to help out the church was one of the best experiences they had. “The people at the church were some of the nicest people I’ve ever talked to. They were super thankful,” Groody added. Sweitzer further emphasized this by mentioning that “the best part was getting to be great neighbors to the church and just the community. They’ve always been really good to us.” Other fun ways the team dealt with the task included creating competitions amongst themselves. “My favorite memory was the competition we had seeing who could carry the most pumpkins in a specific amount of time. Neil Hutchinson ’27 won the competition,” stated Jeff Gerdes ’27. Behnke offered his input on the best part of participating: “We love doing practically anything together and throughout the time we were there everyone had a lot of great energy, making jokes and doing whatever we could to enjoy ourselves.”
This kind act did not go unrewarded. The members of the church bought the team pizza from Marzella’s as a thank you for all the effort they put in and gifted the biggest pumpkin from the truck to Maples Hall. It weighs around 60 pounds! With nothing but positive things to say about the day, the men’s lacrosse team were happy to offer their support to the church when needed. The only thing left unanswered from the team is what their group costume this year will be…guess we will have to wait until Halloween to find out!