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Friday, November 6, 2026
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Pumpkin Smash Turns Halloween Leftovers Into Something Good for the Bronx
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Community members had a smashing good time. (Photos: Eddy Vasquez, top, Mildred Perez, below)
November 6, 2026
Over two tons of pumpkins took a pulping on Nov. 4 when Lehman College and the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) welcomed the Bronx community to the annual Pumpkin Smash, a post-Halloween tradition highlighting ways jack-o'-lanterns, squash, and gourds can be repurposed to benefit gardens, green spaces, and dinner tables.
With more than one billion pounds of pumpkins discarded nationwide each year, the event offered a hands-on demonstration of how food waste can become a valuable community resource.
“Pumpkin Smash started as a way to compost a large amount of food scraps with our fallen leaves on campus, and to make it an interactive community event to teach people about composting,” said Illona Linins, Lehman’s director of Environmental Health and Safety. “Lehman generates about 30 tons of fallen leaves annually, and the two-to-three tons of pumpkins from NYBG’s fall display helps us compost them quickly.”
Along with contributing to compost by crushing cucurbits visitors also sampled pumpkin-based foods prepared by Lehman's Nutrition Club and were encouraged to take home edible heirloom pumpkins and recipes.
“New York Botanical Garden and Lehman are a perfect partnership,” said NYBG’s Zoe Arcidiacono, who organizes the event with Lehman every year. “The Lehman College campus really lends itself to an event like this. It's educational, it highlights the campus’s composting program, and it’s a great way to recycle pumpkins from New York Botanical Garden’s seasonal exhibit to make compost. So it's a win-win.”
Pumpkin Smash came with value-added fitness benefits too. In addition to taking home food for a healthy meal, participants who hoisted and crushed heavy squash got in some high-impact cardio and strength training. Wanda Torres, a NYBG volunteer who has worked at the event for the past two years, also sees the event as a fun way to maintain mental health.
“What I really like about it is that sometimes we have a little stress in our lives, and I feel like there's some people who come to just mash and get it out of their system,” she said.