Over 250 people attended the inaugural Sustainable Scarborough Day last year. The festivities return this year on Oct. 6.  Contributed / Town of Scarborough

Sustainable Scarborough Day will make its return on Oct. 6 featuring electric vehicle test drives, workshops, music, food and other activities.

Over 250 people attended the inaugural event at Wentworth School last year, according to the town’s Sustainability Coordinator Jami Fitch.

“The biggest lesson learned was to move the electric vehicle test drive area closer to the main event,” Fitch said, noting that the previous area was at the library. “It’ll be much more visible and hopefully a lot more people will take advantage of checking out electric vehicles and taking them for a test drive.”

The test drive event won’t just be closer, but larger as well, Fitch said.

“Our event this year is part of the National Drive Electric Week,” Fitch said. “Usually, Portland and South Portland will host events in a rotation as part of National Drive Electric Week, but this year it’s being hosted in Scarborough as part of Sustainable Scarborough Day.”

Local car dealerships and nonprofits will be present to provide information on the vehicles with 5- t0 10-minute test drives on a predetermined course.

Education is the overarching goal of Sustainable Scarborough Day, Fitch said. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., experts will be on hand to provide information on all things sustainability, from electric vehicles and clean energy systems to lawn care and waste reduction.

“The idea came from the Sustainability Committee wanting to educate people about incentive opportunities and rebates through the Inflation Reduction Act,” Fitch said. “It just grew from there to having a kind of sustainability fair where people get information about all sorts of things, like healthy lawn care, land conservation, food waste reduction, recycling – the whole gamut.”

Nate & Ollie’s Rolled Ice Cream, Falafel Mafia and Terra Firma food trucks will be on site. Meanwhile, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., the Maine Marimba Ensemble will perform Zimbabwean music – all played on handcrafted marimbas.

For more information or to join the event as a vendor, go to scarboroughmaine.org and click “What’s Happening” under “Stay Connected.”