NORWAY – Local organizers are hoping an Earth Day festival in town will be the first of many.

The Earth Day celebration will take place at noon on Sunday in the parking lot behind the Fare Share Food Coop and is expected to last three to four hours.

The event will feature performances by the local groups Trailer Trash, Nate Towne, Stream, and Steve and Eddie Hunt. Fare Share will be open for the event to provide electricity and restrooms for the festival.

Organizer Rijah Newell said a planned community clean-up will likely be on a more limited scale.

“Any time I’ve tried to organize that, it’s hard to get people to come together,” Newell said.

Instead, she plans to provide garbage bags so people can organize neighborhood cleanups on their own.

The event will also have a puppet show featuring 10 “people-size” puppets made of newspaper and other materials. Newell says one puppet is 12 feet tall, and that they will also be featured at the summer’s Sidewalk Art festival.

The puppets are part of Newell’s “Trash Into Art” project. The project seeks to turn roadside litter into art as a way to promote awareness of its environmental and economic effects.

“I’m hoping it will get the message out to the community that it’s not OK to litter,” Newell said.

Together with friends and family, Newell collected 200 pounds of litter last fall. The garbage, sculpted into a large wall, periodically crushed a facsimile of Earth on a float featured in December’s holiday parade.

Newell plans to collaborate with a similar initiative at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School called “Trashy Art,” but has not yet met with the group.

She said she has been in contact with Town Manager David Holt and Debra Partridge of the town’s parks and recreation department in planning the event.

While the festival is taking place, vehicles cannot park in the front part of the municipal lot off Main Street.

Newell said the conditions of roadside litter are particularly bad alongside Lake Pennesseewassee, and hopes the event will promote the need for everyday environmentalism.

“It’s not just one day a year,” Newell said.