by Dennis Dalman
Grace Reiter’s bumper crop of Halloween pumpkins not only brought lots of fun for pumpkin-painters and carvers but it also helped St. Cloud Hospital’s Children’s Center.
Reiter, 7, of Cold Spring, sold 200 pumpkins at Milk & Honey Ciders on Oct. 14. Families gathered there for a pumpkin-painting party that included snacks and face painting.
Grace is a student at St. Boniface School in Cold Spring.
Last spring, Grace and her father, Jeff, bought a packet of pumpkin seeds at a hardware store. Then they planted them, with help from Grace’s mother, Sarah; her sister, Bria, 6; and her brother, Bryce, 3.
Months later, lo and behold, the seeds had produced about 300 pumpkins of all sizes.
The family decided to sell most of the pumpkins and donate the proceeds to some good cause. When Grace was asked which cause, she immediately said “the children’s hospital.”
Grace said, “I picked that because I want to help sick children.”
The Reiter children stand by their pumpkins for sale. Left to right are Bria, Bryce and Grace. They donated sales proceeds to St. Cloud Hospital’s Children Center.
