RICHMOND — A little bit of Hawaii is coming to the banks of the Kennebec River this weekend.

This year’s edition of the annual Richmond Days festival, which run from Friday to Sunday, features a Hawaiian theme, complete with a Hawaiian pig roast, a fire show, a hula show and hula lessons by Cirque de Light and a chance to make your own lei or tiki mask.

And when the sun sets Saturday, fireworks will light the sky over the river.

Everything except the food and the Swan Island boat tours is free.

“We like to mix it up,” Victoria Boundy, community and economic development director for Richmond, said. Every year, the festival has a different theme and the scheduled activities stem from that theme.

This year, there’s another change: scheduled activities on Sunday.

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“This is the first year in a lot of years for the Sunday events,” she said. Some community members were interested in offering more events and festival organizers wanted to add activities that would highlight the town’s waterfront and easy access to Swan Island, just across the river.

Sunday starts with the Swan Island 5K race, which starts at 9 a.m. Runners can board the ferry to take them over to the island between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. Boundy said the race is limited to 100 runners and about 40 had signed up by midweek.

From 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., the Swan Island Family Canoe and Kayak event welcomes people in nonmotorized boats to the Swan Island campground to take part in a skills building competition, a scavenger hunt or geocaching.

Capping off Sunday’s events is an artist’s reception at the Southard House Museum with Richmond police Chief Scott MacMaster, the featured photographer, whose work is on display in the museum gallery.

Richmond Luau Days also will feature festival traditions such as parades Friday night and Saturday morning, lobster crate races, and the Saturday morning pancake breakfast at the Enterprise Grange and the Saturday night Richmond High School Alumni Banquet.

To coincide with Richmond Days, the developers of the historic Hathorn Block said they are holding an open house with tours available from Friday evening through Sunday morning.

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The complete roundup of events is available on the Richmond town website, www.richmondmaine.com, where runners also may register for the road race.

“It’s something for us to offer to Richmond residents and to surrounding communities,” Boundy said.

Jessica Lowell — 621-5632

jlowell@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @JLowellKJ


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