MARGATE – Saturday was a perfect day for a Trunktoberfest. What’s a Trunktoberfest you ask? Well, Lucy the Elephant has a trunk and it’s October, so it’s a match made in Halloween heaven.
Families, including some children who attended in their Halloween costumes, enjoyed all that’s great about fall festivals, including a pumpkin patch, corn maze and a hayride on the beach.
The festival, designed to raise a few dollars to build Lucy’s interpretive center, was made extra special with the addition of food trucks and a biergarden hosted by the Greenhouse. Food trucks included Mad Mutz, Twist pretzels and Betty’s BBQ & Fried Chicken among others.
Lucy is sweet, and so were the seven desserts submitted to her first-ever apple pie and pumpkin baking contest. In all, there were seven entries, but only one dessert was made of pumpkin. The remaining six apple desserts were all different, including a spectacular tiered cheesecake topped with an apple and a butterfly. The judges – NJ Assemblyman Don Guardian, Mayor Michael Collins, Commissioner Cathy Horn, and Save Lucy Committee Vice-president Jason Tell – crowded into the tiny train station to sample the entries and fill out their ballots. Entries were judged on presentation, flavor and texture.
Sales of the attractive Trunktoberfest T-shirts in great fall colors were brisk. Children were excited to enter the bouncy rides, which included a replica corn maze. They went to the pumpkin patch set up on the beach to select a pumpkin and then take it to the picnic tables next to The Other Lucy Snack Stand where they painted their pumpkins. Children sat in the director’s chair to get their faces painted with beautiful butterfly designs and scary skeleton faces.
The event was organized by Save Lucy Committee board member Brittany Middleman with the assistance of her fiancé Stephen Singer. They made sure everything was perfect for the children to enjoy. They said the most popular attraction was the hayride tractor pulling ghosts and goblins along the beach.
Save Lucy Committee Executive Director Rich Helfant said every event is a fundraiser, but it was more important that today’s event be fun for the community. He hopes it will become an annual celebration of Halloween under the elephant.
“Lucy wants to see children be happy, and we want to grow this event from year to year,” he said.
Helfant said he is grateful to the city for its support of Lucy the Elephant and the ongoing project to build an interpretive center, complete with ADA-compliant rest rooms and a small office for the manager.
The original design was scaled back to a one-story building. Helfant said because Lucy is on the National Historic Register and is the oldest surviving roadside attraction in the nation, the building could not be built larger than Lucy herself.
After a $500,000 Congressionally Directed Spending donation did not survive the federal government’s DOGE cuts earlier this year, U.S. Senator Cory Booker encouraged the committee to apply again for 2026.
“We’re not sure if it will be funded, but Sen. Booker encouraged us to reapply,” Helfant said.
The Save Lucy Committee will break ground on the interpretive center in April 2026 and hopes it will be completed by Memorial Day 2027.
“The cooperation between the city and Lucy is better than it has ever been and the mayor and commissioners recognize the importance of Lucy to the community,” Helfant said.
For more information about how to support the world’s most favorite pachyderm, see LucytheElephant.org.
Margate's Lucy the Elephant held her first-ever Trunktoberfest Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025.
Copyright Fideri News Network 2025
