Lakeside Apartments in San Leandro Start Off Holiday Season with Annual Pumpkin Patch

SAN LEANDRO, CA - With the holiday season already here, the Lakeside Apartments community has been buzzing with excitement for the return of traditional community events. "Community" would be the best one-word description to describe the last three months of every year at Lakeside Apartments. The end-of-year community building events such as the Pumpkin Patch supplements the consistent attendance to the primary PSCDC resident services, which includes tutoring and homework help via the After School Program, computer classes, job counseling, and the financial and health workshops offered every month by Haydee Pelayo Nuño, the community's PSCDC Resident Services Coordinator. The annual Pumpkin Patch, held at the end of October, was the first community event in this year's holiday season celebrations.

The event, characterized by transforming the grass lot in front of the community room into a pumpkin patch and letting residents choose pumpkins to take home and carve, was a great way for kids to show off their Halloween costumes for the year and bring families together for an evening of memories. Face painting for kids was provided during the event by Sara, a Lakeside resident, and our partner from Xfinity Communities, Lazayah Mortazavi. Another long-time community partner, Cake 4 Kids, provided cupcakes for residents to enjoy while they were working on arts and crafts projects and watching a movie in the community room. Snacks, beverages, and of course, candy, were provided by community's nearby Costco.

Pumpkins in the pumpkin patch were purchased by the Lakeside community! Every year, in the beginning of October, Haydee and her resident volunteers, organize a bake sale to help fund the event. Residents supported the bake sale by purchasing cookies and donating money. The bake sale also received support from Bryan Azevedo, a running candidate for the mayor of Lakeside, who stopped by to meet residents and support the fundraiser. The pumpkins were purchased from JG Trees, a local and family-owned farm that grows and sells Christmas trees and pumpkins.

After the event, everyone stayed to help clean the community room and the grass lot outside. Residents were encouraged to take home as many pumpkins as they wanted to make spooky pumpkin carvings or for baking and cooking. Haydee is already preparing for the next upcoming event, the community's Friendsgiving, which will be held around Thanksgiving time while continuing to provide youth/adult education and resource assistance services currently being offered in Lakeside Apartments.