5th Annual Framingham Earth Day Festival Saturday

Tomorrow, April 25 is the 5th Annual Framingham Earth Day Festival.

The family-friendly, earth-friendly festival takes place at the Framingham Centre Common from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“This is a zero waste event,” said organizer Donna Kramer Merritt. “Everything will be composted or recycled.”

The event is also 100% completely powered via wind power. Electricity used at the event is provided by New England Wind, said Merritt.

More than 50 artisans, health & fitness, non-profit, environmental businesses will have booths on the common. Click here for a complete list.

There are 5 workshops scheduled for Saturday. The schedule is:

• Re-duce: Bike with Safety: (11:30 a.m.) A helmet fitting session by Framingham’s own Cisco Cycles. A how-to on “re-ducing” the risk of injury while recreating outdoors.
• Re-use: Rain Barrel Workshop (12:15 p.m.) Join Kenny Ide, from Ecosystem Productions, to learn how to make a rain barrel from scratch. Kenny will also show you how to properly hook up a pre-made rain barrel.

• Re-cycle: How do I recycle THAT? (1 p.m.) Barbara Sherman, from ReFoamIt recycling service, will explain what can and can’t be recycled, and what to do with those hard to recycle items.

• Re-purpose: Art with a rePurpose! (1:45 p.m.) Dan Balter from Fireseed Arts shows “art with a repurpose”. The team will talk about upcycled guitars, and other re-purposed instruments, and what the organization is doing for the community.

• Re-think: Vegetarian/Vegan 101 (2:15 p.m.) Feeling overwhelmed by the thought of vegetarian, or even a vegan, lifestyle? Join Laura Beck for a “basic” low-pressure workshop on tips and tricks to get started.

Framingham Centre Nursery School will be running the children’s activities. Centre Music House in Framingham is sponsoring the entertainment.

Food vendors scheduled to be at the Festival include:

• Like No Udder
• Our Yellow Submarine
• Taco Party LLC
• Velma’s Kettle Corn

The Earth Day Festival is a great place to recycle items cluttering your home.

At the Common you can recycle eyeglasses, bicycles, cell phones, printer cartridges and more.

There are also a handful of off-cite recycling options:

• Recycle Styrofoam at Grace Church.
• Recycle textiles, including stuffed animals at the Framingham Elks Club
• Recycle electronics at Plymouth Church
  

For more on the Festival, visit www.framinghamearthday.org