Members of CHS Cares — an organization through Central Lunenburg High School (CHS) — were selling concessions Friday through Sunday at the Parrish Pumpkin Patch, which is located at 2571 Dundas Road in Kenbridge, to help raise money for Christmas Angels. According to Sharon Bolan, Christmas Angels are children who are in need and are assisted through the Salvation Army.

“Our goal is to raise $1,000 for that and then anything over we can get another

angel,” Bolen said. “So if we raise $1,100 we can do 11 angels, we do about $100 for each angel.”

Bolen said CHS Cares also helps those in the community, have raised money for hurricane victims and have angels within CHS that they shop for who may need hygiene related products.

She said they also send Christmas cards to the elderly during Christmas time.

The CHS Cares group isn’t the only non-profit to have sold concessions to fundraise this year. According to Liz Parrish, who owns the farm with her husband Jeff Parrish and organizes the  Parrish Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze with him as well, this is the ninth year the pumpkin patch has operated but the first year they’ve invited non-profits to sell concessions.

Jeff said the pumpkin patch has grown over the years mostly due to word of mouth.

“We do a lot of school trips and it’s been the busiest year so far,” Jeff said.

Jeff said his father grew up in the house at the farm.

“My wife and I moved here in 1994 and started having children and raising our family and we used to want to go to a place like this when we had kids that size so it kind of evolved from that,” Jeff said.

He said they’ve enjoyed meeting people and “hearing all sorts of stories and traditions that they have and things like that.”

“We’re exclusively family run and that’s the way we like to keep it,” Liz said, noting that for the operation that they conduct there’s not a lot of manpower.

She said from May to November the pumpkin patch consumes most of her time, given that May is when she decides which types of pumpkin seeds they want to plant and figuring out how many they’ll need to plant in order to satisfy the need for pumpkins they’ll sell during the pumpkin patch. Liz noted that with next year being the 10th anniversary, they’re looking at doing something special to help celebrate as far as what to provide on the farm. The Parrish Farm Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze will be open Wednesday through Friday to the public from 3-7 p.m. This weekend will be the last two days the pumpkin patch is open, with Saturday’s hours from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sunday’s hours being from 1-5 p.m. For more information regarding the pumpkin patch — including details of what they provide there — visit www.parrishpumpkinpatch.com.