Finding connection and worth through Pathfinders Pumpkin Run

When it's grown at Pathfinder's out-of-home care program for young people at the organisation's Tilbuster Station farm on the outskirts of Armidale, the humble pumpkin symbolises so much more than just a food item.

It's 900 hours of growth and nurturing, and not just for the pumpkins, explains Pathfinders employee Tony.

"One of our elders, he took a pumpkin and he looked at me and said 'this is 900 hours'. He said that's seven months, 900 hours, of nurturing (pumpkins) and nurturing young people. You're doing those sort of things in the field. You're learning, nurturing, caring, and the skills that they learn from growing the pumpkin," Tony said.

The young people involved in the out-of-home care program at Tilbuster can be involved in the pumpkins' growth from the start, planting, growing, weeding and harvesting, right through to when the pumpkins are packed in trailers and the kids and their carers get in cars and embark on the Pathfinders Pumpkin Run.

Fifteen-year-old Riley Mammen from Inverell is one of the young people in the program. He has been working hard on this year's Pumpkin Run, and is learning the "excursion" is about so much more than delivering pumpkins and occasionally having fun.

On Monday, ahead of the Run beginning Riley helped cook 60 containers of pumpkin soup in Armidale. On Tuesday, when the Run stopped at Coffs Harbour, Riley helped out in the kitchen at the Uniting Church, set tables and served lunch, and sat talking with the people getting a meal from the community kitchen.

While in Coffs Harbour they also dropped into Pete's Place, a St Vincent de Paul drop in centre for homeless people, and that was an eye opening experience for Riley and the other young people, "seeing all these people and how they are living."

"But it's good to have places like that so people know that they have somewhere to go and they're not alone," Riley says.

The young people in the Pathfinders program have not had an easy life, having been removed from their families by the state.

"(The program) gives the young fellas an opportunity to be part of what we call our circle of courage. And one part of that is the generosity, and this enables them to be contributing," Tony says.

"And also to see firsthand, witness there's other people doing it hard also. So it's an opportunity for them to reflect on themselves and see others in that light. The value of it is face to face."

Pathfinders CEO, Alan Brennan says a big thing for him and other people is how Pathfinders brings young people a sense of belonging.

"A lot of the children that we care for have been removed from their families. So they don't belong anywhere. Belonging in this group is very important to them. Those relationships continue well beyond their 18th birthday," he says.

On Wednesday, May 29 the Pathfinders Pumpkin Run participants started the day at the Taree Community Kitchen on Victoria Street, donating and preparing pumpkins and bread for the day's meal of pumpkin soup. They were also on hand to serve the meal to those attending the community kitchen, and sit, chat and connect over the meal.

In the afternoon the convoy of trailers full of pumpkins (13 tons of pumpkins on this run) and cars of young people and workers head off to Newcastle, where the next day they will be offloading more pumpkins to Soul Hub to distribute, and to make more soup.

On the weekend, they head back to Tilbuster, collect another six tons of pumpkins, and do it all again in Sydney, giving pumpkins to Oz Harvest, the Wayside Chapel, the King Street Mission in Newtown, and the Marrickille Community Food Centre, ending up at Government House.

To learn more about Pathfinders and its various services in regional centres, including Taree, visit https://pathfinders.ngo.