Carnival food, educational booths and more will be featured during the inaugural Earth Day festival at Troy University’s arboretum on April 22.

Perri Haga, president of the Naturalist Club, said the event is meant to raise awareness of the natural world around us and how we can be good stewards of our environment.

“We’ve been prepping some educational booths, doing research on topics that are relevant to people that live in Troy and what we want them to learn about and putting that altogether into fun activities and demonstrations,” she said. “We also want to bring further bring awareness to the arboretum and get people out here to see what’s been going on and how different it is since the last time they were there.”

Run by local high school students, the booths are going to be geared towards ages kindergarten through sixth grade—though Haga said the information will act as a good refresher for people of all ages.

In honor of Earth Day and all 75-acres of the arboretum, a fundraising campaign has been launched to help further the restoration efforts that began over a year ago. The arboretum encompasses 75-acres and features seven-and-a-half miles of nature trails, over 500 identified plant species, a pond and outdoor and indoor classrooms. Funding is needed for manual labor applied to the preservation of the building and grounds, as well as materials and maintenance.

The event is free and open to the public and lasts from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For questions regarding the event, contact Dr. Alvin Diamond, professor and arboretum director, at adiamond@troy.edu.