Food, fun and sustainability will come together as Georgia Southern University’s Center for Sustainability hosts the fifth annual Sustainability Fair at the downtown Statesboro Farmers Market.

“It’s a lot of fun. Vendors bring in a lot of ideas on how to remain sustainable and get a lot of people interested. It’s good because you have a lot of people who are similar. You have food, fun and a place for people to share ideas on how to make the world more sustainable,” Teddy Gandy, a repeated visitor to the event, said.

The Center for Sustainability is holding many small events within the fair taking place on Oct. 20 from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., which is also in coalition with the downtown Statesboro farmers market.

The fair is a way to reach out to the community and provide sustainable solutions for everyday problems and help them to lead a greener life, Lissa Leege, director of the Center for Sustainability, said.

“We will have a number of interactive displays at the event. Kids can get their faces painted and will also be able to make Halloween masks and trick-or-treat bags out of recyclable materials. You can also talk with our green architect, Martin Rule and Associates, about your building plans and collect a free compact fluorescent light bulb from Keep Bulloch Beautiful. You can also learn about gardening with native plants from the Garden of the Coastal Plain at Georgia Southern,” Leege said.

“It’s also great opportunity to see sustainable products that people may not have been exposed to and to learn from the many sustainability vendors at the event,” Leege said.

A lot of people are looking forward to the fair, including the co-planner of the Sustainability Fair, Christina Beslin.

“I’ve been helping Lissa with this event for a long time, and I’m really excited for it. It’s a great opportunity for students as well as for people in the town to learn to be more environmentally friendly and all around just more environmentally conscious,” Beslin said.

Having the chance to connect with people from around Statesboro and educate them about their effects on the environment is a pivotal aspect of the fair, Beslin said.

“I’d like to see people becoming more environmentally conscious and environmentally aware. The people of Statesboro already do a beautiful job of being green, but I think we can always take it to the next level,” Beslin said.