EAST LONGMEADOW – For one weekend this month, the corn maze at The Apple Place in East Longmeadow will come alive with the glow of hundreds of jack-o’-lanterns for the third Annual Pumpkin Place. But to make it happen, the business needs residents’ help.

Cindy Normandin, who co-owns the Apple Place with her husband, Neal Normandin, said that they are putting out the call for people to donate carved pumpkins to line the maze on the nights of Oct. 23 and Oct. 24.

“It’s really magical. It’s really cool,” Normandin said of the Pumpkin Place event. “People like to try to find their [jack-o’-lantern].” The first Pumpkin Place was organized in 2019. Normandin said there were over a hundred carved pumpkins lining the corn maze. Last year, with the pandemic, the event was reimagined and it didn’t see the same level of pumpkin donations. For 2021, Adriana Iacobucci, events coordinator for The Apple Place said they were hoping for “a couple hundred,” jack-o’-lanterns.

“We are asking businesses to shamelessly promote themselves with jack-o-lanterns,” Iacobucci said. They are also encouraging school groups, Boy and Girl Scouts, and individuals to carve and donate carved pumpkins.

A half-price ticket for The Pumpkin Place will be given to people for each pumpkin they donate. The jack-o’-lanterns must be dropped off on Oct. 22 by 7 p.m. Normandin said they don’t have anywhere to store the pumpkins before the drop-off day and it takes four hours to set them up, so they have to receive them before the first day. The Apple Place will provide lights for inside the pumpkins and ask that people with donations contact them as soon as possible so they will have enough lights.

Admission for the event is free for kids 4 years of age and younger and $10 for people 5 years of age and older. Roughly 10 percent of proceeds from this year’s Pumpkin Place will be donated to Rays of Hope, in memory of Sue Nichols Maciorowski.

“The first year we did The Pumpkin Place, [Maciorowski] carved some pumpkins – really ornate,” Normandin told Reminder Publishing of the East Longmeadow resident and former Disney artist, who had worked on “The Lion King,” “Mulan” and “Hercules.” Maciorowski carved the pumpkins despite being sick with breast cancer. She died in 2020. “So, we thought to honor her, and it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month,” Normandin added.

The Apple Place staff will choose 10 winning pumpkins for prizes for the silliest, scariest, most creative and more. After the event, the pumpkins will remain in the cornfield for The Apple Place’s “Terror in the Maze,” event taking place the next weekend. After that, the pumpkins will be eaten by the farm’s goats and pigs, provided they are still edible.

The Pumpkin Place runs from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., both days, admission is at 8:45 p.m. The Apple Place is located at 540 Somers Rd. and can be reached at 348-9628 and theappleplace.net.