Earth Day 2025

Earth Day Festival-Springfield

       by Barry Rowell, Chairmen

              Earth Day Springfield Festival, a 501(c)(3 ) non-profit

     In 2019 Molly Healey, a local musician and music teacher expressed a frustration on her Facebook page that she was feeling the need to do more with her life. She contemplated leaving music to pursue other career choices. Something related to the environment was what she mentioned.

After telling this to her daughter, Annabelle, her daughter recommended she combine her music with this idea of environmental work. Thus the idea of the Earth Day Music Festival was born.

I happened to read Molly’s post on Facebook since I followed her music. I had a couple of my environmental friends set up a meeting with her to discuss the festival idea. My background as Fire Chief in Springfield exposed me to the many potential sources of help we could call upon to organize the festival. Plus my experience coordinating what I call “organized chaos” which often times is what emergency response is, gave me the confidence to work out the logistics and sources for supplies and support.This was in the summer of 2019 with 2020 as our target date for the inaugural event.

     It so happens that Molly is a member of the band, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. She then got them to commit to headlining our first festival scheduled for Earth Day week of April. Everything was shaping up. We had sponsorship committed. We had a killer video produced with the Daredevils release of a new album. We had all the necessary connections and legal permits in place -- then Covid hit in March of 2020.

     We had to postpone our first event to April of 2021, however, we lost the Dares as they had a committed tour celebrating their 50th anniversary already booked. Nevertheless we marshaled on and were lucky to get another great headliner

However, Covid continued to grip the country so we had to postpone yet again.Fortunately, our sponsors all remained committed so the funds were in place and with a lot of hard work from a lot of volunteers, the first event took place in April, 2022.

     With that first year we successfully were able to contribute $18,000 divided equally amongst the Ozark Greenways, the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks, and James River Basin Partnership. 

     Fast forward to May of 2025. We have just completed the 4th annual EarthDay Festival from which we will contribute $20,000 to Missouri Prairie Foundation at our June Sponsor Appreciation and Awards Ceremony.

     In the 4 years that the Earth Day Festival has been held we have raised $91,000 for our local environmental groups. As we look forward to the 5th anniversary of the festival, we feel confident that we will crack the $100,000 mark of funds contributed to support the health of our local and regional environment.

     We have to thank some special folks who have stood by us from early on to make this festival what it is. The Hatch Foundation has supported us for 3 of the last 4 years and Vital Farms has been our Title Sponsor for the last 2 years. Many other businesses and individuals have supported us with funds and in kind donations. Without all these folks and their dedication to

making this event something special for the Springfield area, we could not have done it. And of course, without an army of volunteers we would not be able to make this work.

     We are also proud to be able to say that everyone, Molly, myself, our board members all contribute our time to this. No one, not one person, is paid. This says a lot about the dedication that goes into this event.

     Here’s to a successful 5th anniversary Earth Day Festival, scheduled for April 25th, 2026.