About 40 family members and friends would all meet up in October and travel an hour to my great grandmother’s house to go on a hay ride, pick pumpkins, and make smores by the creek that ran through her property. The tradition ended about 13 years ago. Little did we know the tradition would start up again, only this time right here in Matamoras.
5 years ago when my family purchased property in Mat
amoras we decided to start a small garden. Being that my grandfather still had all his tractors and was recently retired we thought it would be something fun for him to get into again. October came that year and we had a small pumpkin picking party with family members and kids from my nephew’s football team. We had a total of about 20 people. Each of the next 5 years the garden would grow from a small garden to over an acre of pumpkins, and from 20 people to over 400. How field of dreams came about…. Over the past 2 years I started helping a few local kids get back on their feet, which led me to go back to school to become a Physical Education and Health education teacher. On my days off from college I started subbing in the local school and working for the state as a youth advocate. Being in the schools and working in the community made me notice the struggles that some of the students and their families were going through. I wanted to do something where I could help people in the community that was based on what I was in college for. That’s when I decided to sell pumpkins, and donate a large portion of the profits to benefit local youth athletics. With the idea in place I needed a plan. I knew that 1 acre of pumpkins was only enough for our big party. I spent months contacting realtors, and farmers looking for land. That’s when I realized that my aunt had property in Greenville. She was my last hope. I asked her if my grandfather and myself could farm the 5.5 acres of fields she had. She was so excited about my idea and said I could absolutely use her land. With the land, the tractors, and the greatest helper in the world (my grandfather) field of dreams came about.
