Bales of hay, pumpkins, gourds and hundreds of gallons of apple cider will adorn the sidewalk outside Old State Clothing Co. around the clock during this weekend's homecoming festivities.

The Landscape Architecture Student Society, a student-run, student-based society, began their annual Fall Festival of selling pumpkins, gourds, and hot and cold apple cider yesterday at 1 p.m. and will run 24 hours a day, until 6 p.m. on Sunday.

Along with the sale of cider and gourds, there is a raffle for the "Great Pumpkin." In the past, the weight of the raffled pumpkin has been more than 50 pounds.

The festival is the society's primary fund-raiser, and it benefits their annual departmental banquet, activities, seminars and trips to conferences. Fall Fest is important for the organization's vitality and serves to raise awareness of the major and their student society.

"Even though it just supports the LASS, almost everyone in the major likes to participate," said Erika Schneider (senior-landscape architecture), treasurer of LASS.

The festival gives the landscape architecture students a chance to get out of the studio and mingle with a diverse audience of students, alumni and community members.

Students sign up to volunteer to work the stand day and night. Three people run the stand at all times and during the homecoming parade, there are six to eight volunteers.

"It's something fun for you to do. It takes away from the monotony of studio work," said Michele Meraglia (senior-landscape architecture).

The festival is usually held outside of the Willard Building on campus but they decided to move to a new location this year down on College Avenue.

Chris Brown (senior-landscape architecture) has helped with the event since his freshman year.

"We're excited about the new location. We'd like to express our thanks to all of our supporters especially Old State for allowing us to hold the festival here," Brown said.

There is a great amount of preparation involved with the event. Committee chairs, Meraglia, Schneider, Valerie Spooner (senior-landscape architecture) and Theresa Zink (senior-landscape architecture) began preparation during the summer. Local businesses contributed cups, napkins and grocery bags.

"It's a bigger deal than people think. I never imagined the amount of work that is put into the festival, or the hundreds of gallons of cider we had to buy," Spooner said.

The festival is a way some students to join in fall festivities.

"My roommate and I were excited to be able to buy pumpkins to carve," said Emily Garlock (freshman-communications). "We really didn't know where to go for them before we saw the stand."