Two weeks ago we wrote about vandals smashing almost all of the pumpkins at the  Azevada Elementary School garden.

Well, if newspapers serve any purpose these days it’s to dispense guilt and seek empathy, and, sure enough, folks answered the call.

The school has received pledges for more than 300 pumpkins — that’s more than they had in the garden and almost enough for every student. Yesterday Carl and Stephanie Stoloski donated a 98-pound pumpkin to replace the giant pumpkin that the vandals stabbed to death.

On Monday, The Agricultural Institute of Marin, which runs the Newark Farmer’s Market, donated 150 pumpkins and 25 young winter season plants (seen below).

Good O’le Dale Hardware donated new wooden flag poles that the vandals had broken stabbing to death the giant pumpkin. And Mrs. Joyce Azevada, a relative by marriage of the school’s namesake has promised to deliver some pumpkins from her garden when they’re good and ready.