Norwalk Earth Day Festival on the Green

Norwalk’s Earth Day Festival returns to the Green on Saturday, April 25, with a four-hour lineup of environmental groups, vendors and family activities. (visitnorwalk.org) The event runs from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Norwalk Green, 8 Park St., and organizers say admission is free and the festival will be held rain or shine. (norwalkct.gov) Visit Norwalk, the city’s tourism arm, says the fifth annual festival is expected to draw thousands of residents and will include more than 75 exhibitors and vendors, live music, food trucks, speakers and a “Trashion” show built around reused materials. (visitnorwalk.org) The Norwalk River Valley Trail is part of the event’s pitch. Friends of the trail says the Earth Day programming is tied to a larger effort to get more people onto the greenway and into conservation events across the five trail towns. (nrvt-trail.com) That trail project is still being built out. The organization says the planned route will stretch about 30 miles from Calf Pasture Beach in Norwalk to Rogers Park in Danbury, making it the longest trail in Fairfield County when complete. (nrvt-trail.com) In Norwalk, the trail already functions as a 5.6-mile urban section linking shoreline, downtown and park spaces, with off-road and on-road segments through places including Oyster Shell Park, Mathews Park and Union Park. (nrvt-trail.com) The festival is also being promoted through city and school channels, a sign that it has become a broader civic event rather than a niche trail gathering. Norwalk Public Schools posted the April 25 details in March and repeated the promise of 75-plus exhibitors and vendors. (norwalkps.org) The immediate next step is simple: the public can show up at noon on April 25 at the Green, where the city and trail advocates are using Earth Day to turn a downtown lawn into a recruiting ground for outdoor projects and local environmental groups. (eventbrite.com)