Quite an Operation
Hamilton, OH - Leave it to a child to turn an icon into art.
Dolly Pumpkin was just one of the thousands of creative crafts guests made at the Fitton Center's Kid Zone compound during Operation Pumpkin 2026 October 9 to 11.
Guests drew, painted and drilled mini-pumpkins to affix house-made, snap-on eyes, noses and mouths to customize more than 3,000 mini-pumpkins.
In fact, 3,259 people visited the Fitton Center booth over the three-day event: 884 Friday, 1,515 Saturday and 860 on Sunday. That works out to an average of 181 people an hour. With just 24 chairs available under the tents, seats turned over an average of 7.5 times an hour to accommodate everyone.
In addition to Miss Dolly, other popular pumpkins designs included vampires, cats, dogs, werewolves, cowboys, rainbows, strawberries and apples. Summer camp intern and OP volunteer Abby Vollmer even made a tribute to Vincent Van Gough's "Starry Night" on a pumpkin.
Guests also got to see their art in action. After decorating their pumpkins, they visited the adjacent 40-foot Pumpkin Derby track, put their creations in cars and raced for glory. If each pumpkin only raced once - many took multiple trips - that's more than 130,000 feet of racing, or 24.7 miles.
Special thanks to our friends at TAMZ Construction for building, storing and delivering the Pumkin Derby track and to the Dan Beard Council of Scouting America, for partnering with us to run all the races again this year.
Thanks, too, to the all-volunteer committee and support crew from Operation Pumpkin itself for giving us such an enormous platform to share the joy of the arts with an entire city and more.
Enjoy some more photos from the weekend in the gallery below.
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