The annual Allegheny Green & Innovation Festival and Hay Day will be held together from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 24, at the Hartwood Acres Park Amphitheater. Both events are free and open to the public. Parking for the events is also free and available at the amphitheater’s Middle Road lots. A downloadable map of Hartwood Acres Park is available online at www.alleghenycounty.us/parks/maps.aspx.

The festival, which celebrates Allegheny County’s evolution to a green economy, will feature nearly 90 organizations with green-living demonstrations and innovative technology displays, as well as sustainable food and craft vendors. The festival will be a zero-waste event and feature a special children’s area and free giveaways, while supplies last.

The festival will feature 58 exhibitors with green-living demonstrations, educational displays and innovative technology. ZeroFossil, an Allegheny County-based start-up company dedicated to the development of power generation systems that use sun, wind, water and human power, will provide solar and human energy to power all festival exhibitors.

The “I Made It! Market” will feature the following 19 vendors selling craft items made exclusively from recycled and sustainable products.

Graduate students at Chatham University’s Food Studies program developed a Sustainable Food Challenge for the Green & Innovation Festival to help better educate festival goers about the abundance of local, sustainable foods in Southwestern Pennsylvania.  Several local vendors who procure their food from local and sustainable sources will participate.

In the festival children’s area, you’ll find:

·         Carnegie Science Center’s “Science on the Road” – liquid nitrogen ice cream demonstrations (11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.) and liquid nitrogen flower demonstrations (2:00-5:00 p.m.)

·         The Class Clown – juggling and other entertainment

·         Hear Me Project – media and technology that allows kids to tell their stories and free giveaways, such as stickers, folders and bookmarks

·         Reuse-a-palooza – making art with recycled items

Several collection and donation drives will also take place during the day, including:

·         Global Links – collecting new or gently used medical items, including crutches, canes, non-motorized wheelchairs, shower chairs, nebulizers, and collapsible walkers, as well as unused, unexpired and unopened medical supplies, such as bandages, gauze, gloves and diapers

·         Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank – collecting non-perishable food items

·         Green Grandma – collecting hard-to-recycle plastic tops

·         Grejda Electric – collecting burnt-out compact fluorescent light bulbs

·         Pittsburgh Tote Bag Project – collecting reusable tote bags to be used by the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank to distribute food