Pumpkins of all sizes at the Community United Methodist Church's pumpkin patch, 100 Park Boulevard, Massapequa Park. (Photo by John H. Meyer.)

For the past seven years the Community United Methodist Church located at 100 Park Boulevard in Massapequa Park has held a Pumpkin Patch fundraiser in conjunction with the Navaho Indians of Northwestern New Mexico.

Today the Pumpkin Patch Family of churches and other non-profit organizations is made up of over 1,000 locations, over 20 denominations in 42 states and still growing. The Navaho Indians grow, pick and load trailer trucks for the journey to the pumpkin patch locations; two-thirds of the proceeds of all sales goes directly to the Navaho Reservation and the remainder benefits the Community United Methodist Church to help fund their goals.

Jeanne Vehstedt, a church spokesperson said due to the scorching temperatures in August and heavy rains at the end of the month causing Phytopthora, a soil-borne root rot that kills vines and causes pumpkins and gourds to rot creating a scarcity on farm stands. However, she said we have a huge selection right here in Massapequa Park.

It's ironic that before the year 1696 Massapequa had an Indian population stretching back through the centuries. The Marsapeaque tribe, one of 13 tribes of Algonkian culture banded together formed the Montauk Confederacy. Major Thomas Jones and his wife, Freelove, were the first white settlers to locate here in 1696 on land purchased by Thomas Towsend from Chiefs Tackapausha and Will Chippy. In the agreement on record in Queens, Nassau and in Oyster Bays archives it clearly spells out that the handful of white settlers living here at that time were to be permitted to continue hunting, fishing and cutting hay on the meadows.

The bottom line here is that even back 327 years the Algonkian Indians and white settlers were working together to help one another much like the Navahos are today. And, the Shinnecock Indians share their culture each Labor Day weekend holding a Pow-Wow on their reservation in the Hamptons to our East, attended by thousands of curious Long Islanders.