By Jeff Whitten
Special to the Herald
It’s said few things happen in a vacuum and Effingham Georgia Green’s Earth Day Festival 2025 certainly won’t, but EGG’s Rita Elliott sees it as a win-win situation.
Set for Saturday in Guyton, the Festival is one of a number of events scheduled for Easter weekend, among them Historic Effingham Foundation’s Old Effingham Days Festival on Saturday in Springfield, the ongoing Rincon Spring Fair at Freedom Park and the City of Guyton’s Sale along the Trail, a quarterly community yard sale which is also set for Saturday next to the Earth Day Festival on the Guyton Walking Trail.
For Elliott, the city’s community yard sale provides it and the Earth Day Festival with a ready-made audience in Guyton. And the Festival’s proximity to Easter Sunday opened the door for EGG’s first Green Easter Egg hunt – green because the eggs created by STEM students at Guyton Elementary were crafted out of paper mache and have
There’s also the popular giant insect parade – that’s apparently regular-sized people dressed up as giant insects – and as usual the Festival will have an assortment of vendors and educational booths and prizes and more. And everything at the Festival is free apart from items purchases from vendors and the public is invited, of course.
That’s actually the point.
“This is a fun way for us to get together with the public and share information. It’s another way to help to educate people about our environment, and hopefully people then can take what they’ve learned and put it into practice” said Elliott, an archeologist by profession who helped found EGG several years ago. “I think a lot of folks really care about the issues. They want clean water to drink and clean air to breathe and spaces where there is nature.”
And while events like the EGG Earth Day Festival – Earth Day in the United States was first commemorated in 1970 and is now held annually on April 22 – are generally celebrations of Mother Nature, environmentalists such as Elliott say the threats facing the local environment are serious as development continues along the Georgia coast.
Those threats, whether to wetlands or forests and green spaces and the pollinators that sustain them, are part of what EGG seeks to address.
“Our mission is to create, educate and advocate for a greener Effingham County,” Elliott said, noting EGG has been involved in projects such as designing and creating garden spaces for the Downtown Trail in Guyton as well as Macomber and Veterans parks in Rincon.
The group consists of a cross section of residents, Elliott said, from educators to small business owners to scientists and environmentalists and others and has been involved in helping craft tree ordinances in Rincon and Effingham County as well as weighing in on master plans with Guyton City Council and Effingham County’s Unified Development Ordinance.
The schedule and list of participants shows exhibits on tap Saturday range from those illustrating the effects of light and noise pollution to the importance of wetlands and protecting green spaces. The roster is also filled with local organizations and businesses and among the supporters for Saturday’s events are Smalls Funeral Home, the Effingham Community Orchestra, Tom Barnes, Agnes and Rene’ Folse, Robert Kelly, Darlene and Larry Vincent and EGG volunteers.
In addition to EGG, groups or businesses with booths include Bartlett Tree Experts, Child Advocacy Services SEGA, Double Trouble Treasures, Dream On Honey, the Effingham County Sanitation Department, Face Painting by Liz, the LAMAR Institute, Lemongrass Spa, Live Oak Public Libraries, MOTIQUE, Naturescapes, the Ogeechee Riverkeeper, Peggie’s Pollinators, Rincon Ace Hardware, Wright's Market and the Effingham County Sanitation Department.
What’s more, entomology students at Effingham College & Career Academy also played a key role in this year’s Earth Day Festival, having had a hand in making costumes of giant insects for the parade and will have their own booth.
For more information at Effingham Georgia Green, email effinghamgeorgiagreen@gmail.com.
