Open source maintainers are encouraged to prepare their repositories for Hacktoberfest, a time when communities grow significantly, as evidenced by experiences like that of Peter Tseng, who became a core contributor to Exercism through the event. To facilitate contributions, maintainers should perform maintenance on documentation, including adding a clear README, a CONTRIBUTING.md file, a Code of Conduct, and a suitable license using resources like choosealicense.com. Enhancing searchability by tagging repositories with relevant topics, particularly #Hacktoberfest, and labeling issues and pull requests accordingly is also recommended to attract suitable contributors. Such preparations can lead to meaningful engagement and contributions, as demonstrated by the large number of pull requests received by projects like Home Assistant during past Hacktoberfests.