AUXVASSE, Mo. - At Saturday's Ashley Garrett Children's Art Festival, kids will be able do more than 15 art activities, eat a hot dog lunch, listen to music and bring home a book from Scholastic, all for free.
And their parents won't even have to clean up afterwards.
"Auxvasse is a little town that doesn't have much come to it, so we're glad to provide this activity," said Kellie Chapin of the Auxvasse Creative Arts Program, which organized the event.
The event's activities are targeted toward the kindergarten through fifth-grade age group, but Chapin says that in past years, they've had babies and older kids too.
"No one's turned away," she said.
Different event sponsors, such as the Daniel Boone Regional Library and the National Churchill Museum, come up with their own arts and crafts activities.
"We are doing a naval hat activity," said Mandy Plybon, education and public programs coordinator at the National Churchill Museum. "We have paper cutouts of hats, and they can color the hats, they can glue sequins and glitter and feathers and all kinds of stuff on these hats."
The crafts are centered around a theme. This year's theme is fish - so naval hats are a natural extension of that theme.
This is the festival's ninth year, according to Chapin. Past events have drawn between 300-350 attendees.
"Myself and my sister Jennifer Bondurant started the Auxvasse Creative Arts Program," she explained. "Our younger sister passed away in a car accident. She was a childcare provider and very artistic."
The program, and the art festival that bears Ashley's name, honors her memory and her love of both children and the arts.
"The message behind the program means a lot to the community, even if we didn't know Ashley," Plybon said. "The reasoning behind the program is important to everyone."
Callaway County's community truly rallies behind the festival. Volunteers from Westminster College, William Woods University, the Girl Scouts and many others will be present, and many local businesses have donated food, supplies or money.
"I think especially with arts and crafts-type activities, children learn so much doing them," Plybon said. "They learn how to communicate, they learn how to think critically as they're creating this masterpiece. And it's a safe way for them to express who they are."