Downtown Hamilton hasn’t seen as much foot traffic as it did Saturday since the heyday of Fort Hamilton Hospital in the 1970s, said city native Jerry Flick.

Hundreds of people walked High Street and the surrounding downtown streets for the inaugural Operation Pumpkin, an pumpkin festival designed to showcase the progress the city’s made in the past few years and to hopefully to support some community organizations.

“I’m absolutely thrilled,” said Flick, one of the event’s organizers. “It’s great to see the sidewalks of downtown Hamilton full.”

The event is a pumpkin and arts festival that displays how the city’s progressed in recent years, said Jason Snyder, another of the event’s organizers. It also supports some local groups, such as the YMCA Camp Campbell Gard, Hamilton Urban Garden System and the Butler County Historic Courthouse Restoration Committee.

The bulk of whatever is raised — which there are no projections — will go to the courthouse restoration efforts, 19th century building that’s in need of repairs. The county’s probate court is run out of the building that sits on High Street between South Front and Second streets.

HUGS, which had a fund-raising booth at the Journal Square, will use funds it receives to design and install gardens around the Greater Hamilton area and throughout the county, said HUGS member Alfred Hall.

“What we’re doing is trying to get a network of community gardens throughout Hamilton,” he said. They’d also like to get a community greenhouse.

“We’re all about building community,” Hall said. “Operation Pumpkin builds community, gardens build community.”

The YMCA typically raises about $8,400 for children to attend Camp Campbell Gard, said Jim Sexstone, the branch executive for the Y’s Camp Campbell Gard. He said the event will hopefully help the YMCA maintain that level of fund-raising.

“It’s great to see people (at the event) smiling and laughing together,” he said.

Camp Campbell Gard sends children to camp every summer and those with special needs and those without participate in camp activities side by side. A third of the campers are special needs children, Sexstone said.

The festival continues from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today, which includes various artisans, food and beverage vendors, a farmer’s market, and rides. At noon, the Mini Pumpkin Dunkin Race — similar to the Rubber Duck Regatta in Cincinnati — will take place. The Giant Pumpkin Regatta — where participants try to paddle giant hallowed out pumpkins on the Great Miami River — will begin at 1 p.m.