The shops downtown are coming together to offer the community a social event for the season.

The Downtown Pumpkin Social will be held from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Saturday on Washington Street.

“Things like this are just nice, nice things to have to do on a Saturday,” Art and Soul owner Regina Gailani said. “It doesn’t have to take all day. Just come down and get that fall feeling.”

Just as they did this summer at the Downtown Watermelon Social, the shops are offering free treats and sales among other fun activities at their first pumpkin social.

“The goal is to be doing more regular events that really plug in the keywords of neighborhood and community,” Lurline Simmons, owner of Crown to Heels, said. “You can’t go anywhere else in Vicksburg and find a strip of 20 plus merchants all collaborating together in a four block radius.”

Each shop will offer pumpkin themed h’orderves like pumpkin flavored desserts, snacks or even beverages to customers throughout the day. All of the treats’ recipes are printed out on an index card size piece of paper for customers to collect.

Crown to Heels, 1310 Washington St., is providing Sugar & Spice Pecans made with sugar, spice, salt, egg whites, butter and pecans. Blush and Bashful, 619 Crawford St., will provide a cookie made of devil’s food cake with pumpkin and a pumpkin spice Hershey Kiss pressed in the center.

“It’s a very simple recipe but really yummy,” Aimee Sanford manager of Blush and Bashful said.

Customers are encouraged to visit each store to collect all the recipes. Once the recipes have been gathered, Gailani will bind them into a booklet by punching a hole in the corner, adding a front and back cover and sliding in a metal ring to hold the pages together.

“[Customers] bring them to Art and Soul and we’ll bind them for them so they have a nice, tasty little keepsake,” Gailani said.

In addition to the treats, the stores are competing with each other in a pumpkin-decorating contest. Each story will carve, paint or decorate a pumpkin to embody their store and some will have a festive holiday theme.

“We are excited about doing a pumpkin,” Sanford said. “We can’t wait. It’s going to be fun to figure out a design for a pumpkin.”

The pumpkins will be on display in each store Saturday.

“Customers will have a chance to vote on the most festive or best themed pumpkin for a downtown store,” Gailani said.

Patrons can look at pictures of each of the pumpkins and vote for the winner at Art and Soul, 1312 Washington St. Everyone is encouraged to take photos with the pumpkins and post the pictures to social media or show them to Gailani at her store.

Downtown Patrol Officer Joseph Stubbs is scheduled to lead a pumpkin carving demonstration outside for the public to observe.

Merchants are excited for customers to see the new fall merchandise from décor to clothes to linens and for them to start thinking about the holiday season just around the corner. Sanford said autumn is one of their favorite seasons at Blush and Bashful, and they are eager to show off the fall items they have for sale.

Gailani is proud to work on a street of owner-operated stores where the owners are completely involved, which she said creates an interesting story behind the products they carry and why they carry them.

“If you’re carrying something in your store you’re not really passionate about, why do it,” Gailani said. “There’s always a reason why you buy something.”

The communal feeling of the stores downtown and the fact that they will refer customers to each others’ stores encourages her.

“I don’t think that happens a lot of places,” Gailani said.

She expects good times and good weather all day Saturday.

“Fit it in whatever time of the day, come by, we’ve ordered up nice cool weather,” Gailani said.