Between now and Halloween, Yorktown Heights' biggest events come from a Lions Club, a church green team, a Scout troop, the town recreation department and a farm on White Hill Road. None of them is a new restaurant or a pop-up from a business. A search of local news and town listings for this fall turned up no confirmed new restaurant, cafe or shop openings in Yorktown Heights. The calendar that does exist belongs almost entirely to volunteers.
That matters for planning, because volunteer events come with volunteer rules. A rain date that bumps into another event. A sign-up sheet that keeps volunteers from being swamped. Ticketed time slots sized for a troop's crew. Each event below is free or close to it, and each has a small catch that decides how your weekend goes.
Who is behind each date
| Date | Event | Run by | Cost | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sun., Oct. 11 | Fall Festival & Car Show | Hudson Valley Gateway Chamber of Commerce | Not listed | One day only, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. |
| Sat., Oct. 17 | Halloween Parade and Carnival | Yorktown Lions Club and Parks & Recreation | Free | Lineup by 1:15 p.m., rain date Oct. 18 |
| Through October | Pick-your-own pumpkins | Wilkens Fruit & Fir Farm | No admission or parking fee | Closed Tuesdays |
| Sat., Oct. 24 | Yorktown Repair Cafe | Grace Lutheran Church Green Team | Free repairs | Two-item limit, sign-up preferred |
| Fri. and Sat., Oct. 30–31 | Spooky Fest | BSA Troop 164 | $5 per guest age 2+ | Ticketed for every guest age 2 and up |
The order matters. The month starts with events that cost nothing and ask for nothing, and it ends with the one event that needs a ticket for nearly everyone who walks in. In between, each event asks a bit more planning than the one before it.
Tomorrow at the mall, then a week to get costumes ready
The Fall Festival & Car Show runs Sunday, Oct. 11, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Jefferson Valley Mall, 650 Lee Blvd. The Hudson Valley Gateway Chamber of Commerce is listed as the organizer. The town calendar promises rides, vendors, crafts, live music and food trucks. Of everything on the month's calendar, it comes closest to a commercial event, and even this one is a chamber festival rather than a store promotion.
Two days later, on Tuesday, Oct. 13, at 6 p.m., the John C. Hart Memorial Library hosts a virtual Haunted Objects program with a paranormal investigator. Registration is required, according to the library's column in Yorktown News. It falls on a Tuesday, which also happens to be the day Wilkens closes.
Oct. 17: the parade the Lions pay for
The Halloween Parade and Carnival is the biggest free event of the month, and its rules are the simplest. Yorktown News reported that the Yorktown Lions Club and Parks & Recreation are sponsoring it, with marchers meeting at the firehouse at 1:15 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 17. The town's Halloween page gives a slightly later time. It says lineup begins at 1:30 p.m., the parade steps off at 2 p.m., and the carnival runs until 4 p.m. Arriving by 1:15 works for both. The Lions' events page has the parade going from Commerce Street to Jack DeVito Memorial Track & Field on Veterans Road, and carnival visitors who aren't marching come in from the Veterans Road driveway.
The carnival is free. The Lions' announcement in Yorktown News lists games, candy, cartoon characters, crafts, a photo wagon, a bouncy house and named games such as "Bones Ring Toss." The club's own page adds food trucks, inflatables and a DJ. Children who march get a Lions goodie bag, per the club's events page, which is a good reason to arrive for the 1:15 lineup rather than meeting the group at the field.
The town's Halloween events page calls the parade a costume showcase. Neither the town nor the Lions has posted contest categories or judging rules, so plan on a parade, not a competition.
If it rains, the parade moves to Sunday, Oct. 18. The Hart Library's Family Game Day is already on the calendar that day from 1 to 3 p.m. It's a drop-in board-game program for ages 2 and up. On a dry weekend, that gives families a quiet Sunday after a loud Saturday. On a wet one, the two events overlap by an hour, and families will have to choose.
One more deadline from the same office. The Yorktown Recreation Halloween drawing contest is open to town residents in grades K through 5, and entries are due Thursday, Oct. 22. The winning drawing will go on the 2027 Halloween T-shirts.
The pumpkin patch keeps farm hours
Wilkens Fruit & Fir Farm at 1335 White Hill Road is the one stop on this list that isn't run by volunteers. It still works more like a community event than a store. The farm's pumpkin page says it expected to open pick-your-own pumpkins on Friday, Oct. 2, a bit later than first planned because of the weather, and points visitors to its harvest calendar for exact dates. The patch is open 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Wednesday through Monday, all October. There are no reservations and no parking, admission or entrance fee.
The rule to remember is that Wilkens closes on Tuesdays. Two of the month's library programs fall on Tuesdays, the Oct. 13 Haunted Objects talk and the Oct. 27 storytime, so those are the days to do something other than the patch. A 4:30 close also means a weekday pumpkin trip after school is tight.
Oct. 24: the event that runs on a sign-up sheet
The Yorktown Repair Cafe asks for more than showing up, and the extra ask comes from how it works. Grace Lutheran Church's Green Team hosts it four times a year in the church's fellowship hall, according to Grace Lutheran, with church and community volunteers serving as repair coaches. The church is at 3830 Gomer Street. The Repair Café Hudson Valley page for Yorktown says the first one was held in July 2018. That made it the second repair cafe in Westchester County, after Ossining's. More than two dozen have been held since, always on the fourth Saturday of January, April, July and October. The Sierra Club Lower Hudson Group co-sponsors every repair cafe in Putnam, Rockland and Westchester.
This fall's cafe is Saturday, Oct. 24. The town calendar lists it from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., with free repairs and a two-item limit. Signing up isn't required. The organizers say booking a slot cuts the wait and lets volunteers see what's coming through the door. The coaches have limited time and specific skills, so knowing in advance that someone is bringing a vacuum or a necklace helps them plan the day.
The coaches across the Hudson Valley network work on lamps, vacuums, clocks, chairs, small appliances and other electrical items, digital devices, clothing and textiles, dolls, stuffed animals, toys and jewelry. They also sharpen tools. Grace Lutheran counts more than 1,300 broken items kept out of the waste stream since the Yorktown cafe began. That's a running total over roughly eight years of quarterly events, not a count from any single Saturday. The four-times-a-year schedule matters more than the total. After Oct. 24, the next cafe on this schedule is the fourth Saturday of January, three months away. A lamp with a bad switch or a costume with a torn seam should come this month.
Three days later, on Tuesday, Oct. 27, the Hart Library holds a K–3 storytime and craft built around The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt, 4 to 5 p.m., registration required. It's the library's one Halloween program in the last week of the month.
Oct. 30 and 31: the only stop that sells tickets
BSA Troop 164's Spooky Fest closes the month at the Yorktown Grange Fairgrounds, 99 Moseman Road. It runs Friday, Oct. 30, from 4 to 8 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 31, from noon to 4 p.m., according to the troop's calendar. The ticket listing describes an interactive story walk through a haunted farm, plus seasonal activities. It's pitched at ages 2 to 7, costumes are encouraged, and it runs indoors and outdoors, rain or shine.
Tickets are $5 per guest age 2 and older, sold in Friday afternoon and evening slots and Saturday midday slots. The money supports the troop's programs in outdoor skills, leadership and community service. Time slots let a Scout troop keep its crowd at a size its volunteers can guide through a story walk. That's also why, unlike the Lions parade, this event takes a little planning in advance. A family of four with two kids over age 2 pays $20 for the whole group.
The Friday slots are the easier fit for families who go trick-or-treating on Halloween night. The 2026 listing doesn't describe Spooky Fest as an annual event.
After Halloween
The town calendar runs straight into November with two more dates, both of which also depend on residents showing up. The Veterans Day Parade is listed for Sunday, Nov. 8, and the Great Fall Cleanup for Saturday, Nov. 21. Details for both are posted on the Town of Yorktown calendar.
Halloween weekends feel different when the clubs and troops running them are the same ones down the street from you. If you're thinking about where you'll spend Halloween next October, The Price Team can walk you through the parts of Yorktown Heights close to Commerce Street, the Grange Fairgrounds and White Hill Road. Start with Get Access To Our Listings.
