Festivals, Food and Football

Good morning, Easley, today is Saturday, May 18 and there are 227 days left in the year.

There's lots to do today in Easley and the surrounding area.

The first Foothills Arts Festival kicks at 10am and will run until 4pm in Old Market Square.

The event is being held by the Arts Council of Pickens County, an organization that formed last year with the goal of celebrating and supporting local arts and artists.

The festival will feature visual, performing, literary, culinary, and folk artists from around the upstate.

Throughout the day, free entertainment occupies the Amphitheatre stage.

Pickens High School Advanced Drama students will perform a program designed for young children at 10am.

Dancers from Easley Dance Conservatory will inspire young and old to “dance like no one’s watching,” beginning at 10:45am.

The group Musaeus will perform at 11:30 and will be followed by Mason Raines at 12:15pm.

Spotlight Dance Company will provide an energetic dance performance for the community. Their performance begins at 1pm.

Students from the Pickens Middle School Strings Ensemble will fill the spring air with sweet sounds as they perform from 1:45pm – 2:15pm.

The Young Actors Company of Easley will perform beginning at 2:30pm.

The Daniel High School Jazz Band will perform from 3:15 to 4pm.

The Easley Farmers Market will be open tomorrow from 8am – noon. Come and enjoy talking with local farmers and vendors and take home some fresh produce, plants and handmade items. According to the market's Facebook, strawberries are in!

A local organization that helps exotic animals will be having an Open House tomorrow.

Safe Haven & Educational Adventures, Inc. is inviting anyone that would like to see and support the animals to come to their open house.

They will be open with free admission between 11 am and 7 pm. To find Safe Haven take 183(Farrs Bridge Road) into Easley (Dacusville) and turn onto Thomas Mill Road beside the Spinx Station. Look for signs from there. Anyone with questions should contact Safe Haven at 864-246-4425 or info@rescueexotics.org.

Safe Haven's Adventure Day will also have opportunities to touch (some of) the animals, food, raffles, silent auctions, games and crafts for the kids.

Mouth-watering barbeque is provided by Swine Em & Dine Em, a barbeque competition team. This is the sanctuary's largest fundraiser of the year to generate support for the animals.

Hagood Mill hosting a special “Armed Forces Day” concert on Saturday, May 18. This free event (donations appreciated) will feature a performance on the mill’s outdoor stage from 11:30 to 3:00 with the mill site’s great “house band,” Rocky Bottom Bluegrass, and SC Folk Heritage Award winning fiddler, multi-instrumentalist and entertainer, Nick Hallman. Nick and friends will do a variety of music, stories and fun (including a demonstration of mountain toys).

Opening the show at 11:30 will be a performance of patriotic music by the Classic Stringers, a home-school orchestra from Greenville directed by Donna Ringenberg. The group played this month for the “Honor “Flight” that took veterans to Washington. Bring a lawn chair and plan on staying a while for some great patriotic, bluegrass and old time music. Bring your instrument too, as there are usually a couple of jams going on around the site. The old gristmill and other demonstrations will be running from 10:00 until 4:00.

Present on site for Armed Forces Day will be the Military History Club of the Carolinas with military vehicles, historians and re-enactors. Hampton’s Legion – Hart’s Battery will be onsite with an encampment of “War Between the States” era soldiers, along with the Calhoun Light Artillery. Come out and enjoy this educational tribute to America’s Armed Forces.

A special presentation will be made at 1:00 p.m., as a new State Historical Marker from the South Carolina Department of Archives and History will be unveiled on the site. The marker tells of the historic gristmill and the site’s ancient petrogylphs.

End the day by cheering on the Green Wave in their annual spring football game. The Green and White Game begins at 6pm at Easley High School.