Newtown Earth Day organizers are planning the 2024 Newtown Earth Day Festival.

The festival will return to the front lawn of Newtown Middle School, 11 Queen Street, on Saturday, April 27.

The event will run from 10 am to 4 pm featuring environmental organizations, local service groups, vendors, food, refreshments, and live entertainment.

Newtown Lions Club will also present its annual Lose The Litter outreach, with residents invited to pick up trash bags and road assignments and head out to clean roads of winter trash.

The festival will open at 10 am, with a performance of the national anthem by Grace Snowden. Newtown First Selectman Jeff Capeci will then offer opening remarks before live music takes the stage for the remainder of the event.

Scheduled performers as of April 3 include Newtown High School Jazz Ensemble at 11 am, Split Decision at noon, then Vertigo, The Barn Rats, and John Chapman at the top of each subsequent hour.

This year will also include local car dealers and enthusiasts showing examples of their 21st Century fleet of green vehicles that offer tax breaks, reduced fuel and maintenance costs, and environmental benefits.

‘Regenerating Life’

Two nights before the outdoor festival, The Newtown Earth Day Committee and WPKN Radio will co-host a screening of Regenerating Life.

Released in 2023 by filmmaker John Feldman, Regenerating Life takes an ecological approach to unraveling the climate crisis. It challenges the prevailing idea that carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are the primary cause of this crisis and offers a new narrative.

The film proposes that it is humankind’s relentless destruction of the natural world that has caused the climate crisis. This is because nature —the vast biodiversity that exists on the planet — regulates and balances Earth’s climate.

Feldman dives into the economic and political systems that have encouraged this destruction of Earth through the relentless quest for wealth and dominion, but stresses that the destructive process can be reversed by regenerating life.

Feldman visits people who are developing solutions. By working with nature, they are restoring the forests, fields, wetlands, and oceans. They are regenerating soils to grow healthy food and build healthy communities.

Regenerating Life invites audiences to rethink their assumptions about climate change and humankind’s relationship to nature.

The local screening is planned for Thursday, April 25, at 7 pm, in the Alexandria Room of Edmond Town Hall, 45 Main Street.

A Q&A with Feldman will follow the screening.

Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 students, and available at newtownearthday.org.

Proceeds from the film screening will benefit Newtown Earth Day and WPKN 89.5 FM.

Newtown Earth Day is also a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Partial proceeds from festivals are donated to Newtown Scholarship Association, earmarked for students majoring in environmentally friendly studies, according to an announcement for the event.

For additional information about this year’s event visit newtownearthday.org.