Local restaurants and businesses will participate in the first ever Veggie Festival at Heritage Station Saturday.

The festival will begin at noon, where local artists will play music and local businesses will hold different events on how to become healthier. Activities such as yoga and CrossFit will be offered at the patio at different points throughout the day.

The Veggie Festival comes from a recent initiative made by the Create Huntington group.

“Create Huntington provides support to new and existing community projects that work to improve the Huntington area,” said Create Huntington President Bruce Decker.

“As many know, Huntington isn’t necessarily known as a ‘healthy’ city,” said Ian Thornton, a member of Create Huntington. “But there have been plans and businesses popping up the last few years to hopefully change that perspective. Stuff like PATH and Huntington Kitchen. So we wanted to continue that effort and bring this event to our city.”

The event is also being used as a way for Create Huntington to gauge the interest of the Huntington community and take surveys on what people believe they can or should do for the community.

The organization received a grant from the Benedum Foundation for the StepUp Create Huntington Impact Study and Strategic Planning Project. The grant they received allowed them to put together the festival.

The festival will end at 6 p.m., with local band Of the Dell performing.

This is also just one more step for Huntington in attempting to receive a $6 million grant for America’s Best Communities. People such as Mayor Steve Williams and Thornton have been making these efforts for the past few months by continuously bettering the Huntington community.

Tom Jenkins can be contacted at [email protected].