Doug Wentzel has helped organize the Children’s Halloween Trail at Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center for more than 20 years, but he still manages to get excited about it.
“It’s different every year,” says Wentzel, a naturalist and program director at Shaver’s Creek, Penn State’s nature center. Wentzel oversees the Penn State students who design and run the trail, a popular feature of the center’s annual Fall Harvest Festival.
This year’s festival will be held on Saturday, Oct. 18, and Sunday, Oct. 19. Approximately 1,500 visitors usually turn out for the festival, which features pumpkin carving, live music, storytelling, face painting and nature activities.
This year’s theme for the Children’s Halloween Trail is “Pennsylvania Plants and Animals Have Diverse Stories to Tell.” Student trail guides will play the part of traveling storytellers and teach families about plants and animals, ranging from woodpeckers to eastern hemlock to bobcats.
The Halloween Trail, which is ‘non-scary,’ has stations that are developed each year by students enrolled in the recreation, park and tourism management course “Principles of Environmental Interpretation.” Students also earn credits for helping organize and orchestrate the festival.
More than 100 Penn State students are involved in the festival in some way, from designing the trail stations to running carnival-type games, such as pumpkin bowling, or demonstrating an old-fashioned apple cider press. The two-day festival will also feature birds-of-prey demonstrations and local food vendors.
Festival goers can enter pumpkin-carving and costume contests; winners will be announced each day. (Pumpkins for $2 and carving tools will be available at the festival.) There will also be a prize each day for the best fall-themed dessert entered in the Harvest Baking Challenge.
Admission to the festival, which runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, is free. Tickets for the Halloween Trail are $5 for children and adults, and free for ages 3 and younger. Advance purchase is recommended by calling (814) 863-2000. For more information, visit www.shaverscreek.org/fallfestival.
