Put on your fancy hat and your walking shoes and join the Wake Forest Garden Club for its annual Mad Hatter’s Tea, Garden Market and Garden Tour. The festivities are on Saturday, May 9, and are at the Wake Forest Historical Museum at 414 North Main Street in Wake Forest. The Tour, Garden Market and Classic Car show begin at 10 am. and go until 4 p.m..  The plated tea will be served from 11 am until 2 pm. This year the theme of the tour is pools, barns and backyard retreats, and all 10 gardens are located in or around the North Main Street Historical District. Pottery, jewelry, paintings and other art will be on display and available for purchase in our Garden Market, along with locally grown plants. Local classic car aficionados will have their prized vehicles on display and will be happy to share experiences and expertise

The Free Spirits Ensemble of the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra will present “Back by Popular Demand” at the Wake Forest Renaissance Centre for the Arts on Friday, April 17, at 7:30 p.m. Featuring the most requested works performed by the ensemble in its 13-year history, the occasion will include the works of Richard Faith, Elizabeth Raum, Lanette Lind and Astro Piazzolla. Tickets are $12 (plus tax) for adults, $10 (plus tax) for students and seniors and children ages 12 and under are admitted for free. Advance tickets can be purchased on the Renaissance Centre website at http://www.wakeforestnc.gov/tickets-events.aspx. On the day of the event tickets may be purchased at the door. For more information, visit www.wakeforestnc.gov/renaissance-centre.aspx or call 919-435-9458. The Wake Forest Renaissance Centre for the Arts is located at 405 S. Brooks St. in the heart of downtown Wake Forest. To learn about upcoming events at the Renaissance Centre, call the

The 35th annual Trentini Foundation banquet will be held Saturday, April 18, at The Forks Cafeteria. The speaker for the evening is Republican state Senator Chad Barefoot, who is in his second term representing parts of Wake and Franklin counties. The winners of the two Trentini Scholarships, one for a graduating senior at Wake Forest High School and the other for a graduating senior at Heritage High School, will be announced at the dinner. All of the six nominees at the two schools will be introduced, and the winner of the technical school/community college scholarship will also be announced. The foundation awards a $30,000 scholarship to the winner at Wake Forest High and gives $1,000 to each of the five nominees who are not selected for the scholarship. Currently the scholarship for the Heritage High winner is $5,000, but the foundation and parents are working to increase the endowment and

Wake Forest’s popular spring street festival, Meet in the Street, will be back on South White Street Saturday, May 2, for the 35th year, bigger and better than ever. Instead of confining the vendors and the fun to just one street, they will spill over into South Taylor Street and Brooks Street. And there will be more than 100 artisans’ booths along with food, live music, street performances and children’s activities. The popular beer garden will return. It is all free – except when you buy that painting or that necklace – and will last from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is presented by the Wake Forest Area Chamber of Commerce and Wake Forest Downtown Inc.

The CenturyLink Community Relations Team is once again hosting a Community Yard Sale with proceeds benefitting the Franklin County Relay for Life. The event is scheduled from 7 a.m. to 12 noon on Saturday, April 25, in the company parking lot at 14111 Capital Boulevard, just north of Wake Forest. Bobby Shatterly, Area Plant Supervisor and volunteer chairman for the CenturyLink Relay for Life team, is enthusiastic about this annual event. “We encourage people in the community to reserve a spot, and then get busy with their spring cleaning at home. It’s the perfect time to turn unwanted items into cash!” Yard sale spots are sold for $20 each, and 100 percent of the money raised goes to Relay for Life. All the proceeds from selling merchandise belongs to the seller. Anyone interested in reserving a spot needs to contact Stacey Arnold at CenturyLink. She can be reached via email

The construction permit for the Wake Forest Fire Department’s Station #4 on Jenkins Road, which had been waiting since Dec. 12, 2014, was pulled during March by Focus Design Builders, but construction has not begun. The building will have 9,547 square feet, the fees totaled $35,111.99, and the improvement value will be $1,786,547. Altogether the independent fire department owns property – according to the Wake County Revenue Department’s website – worth $4,630,022. They are: Station #1 on Elm Avenue, $1,713,359; Station #2 on Ligon Mill Road, $1,110,156; and Station #3 on Forestville Road, $1,800,507. Wake County currently lists the land on Jenkins Road as worth $104,440. Station #5 is the former Falls Fire Department, which merged with the Wake Forest department in March of 2012. The building housing the department stands on Holmes Hollow Road – previously Falls of the Neuse Road before the road was realigned and rebuilt –

*The Wake Forest Farmers Market will host the first of three crafts shows this Saturday, April 18, from 8 a.m. to noon in Renaissance Plaza on Brooks Street. See article in this week’s issue or go to http://wakeforestmarket.org/events/spring-craft-market to see all the craft vendors. *Hometown Teams: How Sports Shape America, a traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution, will be at the Wake Forest Historical Museum on North Main Street from April 17 through May 31. This is one of only six North Carolina museums selected to host the exhibit, which is free and will be open to the public every day except Memorial Day during the exhibit. *The always popular HerbFest will return for two weekends – April 17-19 and April 24-26. Find the largest selection of non-GMO organic herbs, heritage tomatoes, heirloom vegetable plants and local perennials. There will be demonstrations about herb crafts and cooking, live music, free