Free Festival Celebrates Veterans, Military Families

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ROME, GA -- Last year, almost 300 people and nearly 30 vendors attended the annual Veterans Family and Military Family Fun Day at Georgia Highlands College.

To highlight its third consecutive year, the event will feature for the first time ever a 20-piece military band.

Best of all? The event is completely free and open to the public!

Each year, April is recognized as the month of the military child, which dates back to 1986. In honor of this time of year, the college  will host its annual Veterans and Military Family Fun Day event on the Floyd campus from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 23.

The event is a partnership between the Student Veterans of America, the GA Army National Guard Family Assistance Specialist and Month of the Military Child celebration.

“We are very grateful for the many generous donors in our community that provide us with supplies, volunteers and services to help us keep this event completely free for our local military families,” event organizer Amy Wise said.

Wise, who also serves as GHC’s veterans affairs coordinator, stated that military service, especially deployments, affects the whole family, and events like this are a perfect opportunity to show veterans and military students and their families as much support as possible.

The event — which includes free food, door prizes, a petting zoo, rock climbing wall, Bingo, a bounce house, canoeing on the lake, and much more—is also open to the public, Wise said.

“This is a fun, free opportunity for our military students to bring their families on campus. It is also an opportunity for GHC faculty, staff and students to bring their families out and show support to our military students,” she said. “There will be free food, games, door prizes, BINGO, a bounce house, face painting, arts and crafts and much more. The weather is going to be great, so we encourage everyone to come out.”

The festival will be held at the campus's pavilion at Parris Lake, which is located at 3175 Cedartown Highway in Rome.

For more information, contact Amy Wise at 678-872-8005 or by email at awise@highlands.edu.

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Image via Shutterstock