The Thirty First Annual Waterbury Rotary Sunflower Growing Contest known as The Hunt for Sunzilla, The Monster Sunflower will be held on Thursday, September 12, 2024 at 5 pm at the Rusty Parker Park in Waterbury in conjunction with the Waterbury Farmers Market. To help celebrate the 31st Annual Hunt for Sunzilla the Waterbury Rotary Club will be sponsoring an Ice Cream Social as part of this event. YUM! So bring your amazing sunflowers and cheer on the many contestants for this annual event.
The contest starts on Arbor Day, the first Friday in May when the Waterbury Rotarians provide trees for Brookside Primary School, Crossett Brook Middle School and The Moretown Elementary School which the students help to plant as part of the celebration. Information about Arbor Day is also shared with the students. Following the celebration packets of giant sunflower seeds are provided for all the students to plant. Additional packets of seeds are also distributed to businesses around the Waterbury area. Approximately 20,000 seeds are distributed for this event annually. Since the first contest over one half a million sunflower seeds have been shared with the participants. During the second Waterbury Farmers Market in September at the Rusty Parker Park, the Hunt for Sunzilla contest occurs. We judge Sunflowers for the heaviest sunflower head, largest diameter sunflower head and the tallest sunflower which is dubbed, Sunzilla the Monster Sunflower. There have been winning sunflowers over 16 feet tall, sunflower heads over 24 inches in diameter and over 6 pounds in weight. Prizes include bird feeders, bird houses, sunflower seeds and gift certificates. Beside the Waterbury Rotary Club, other sponsors of the prizes include Evergreen Gardens, Sunflower Natural Foods, Waterbury True Value Hardware and the Waterbury Farmers Market. In conjunction with Sunzilla we also have: The Search for the Other Green Monster which is the longest and the heaviest zucchinis. To date, the biggest Zucchini that has been measured weighed about 54 pounds.
Beside the judging of the sunflowers, we also hold an almost Olympic athletic event for kids twelve and younger. This is a sunflower seed spitting contest for both distance and accuracy. If you have any questions contact John Malter at 802-244-7373.
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