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The town of Windsor’s Summer Salute to Freedom will celebrate Independence Day early this year, featuring festivities on Saturday, June 28, that will include live music, a Kids’ Zone, food trucks, a cruise-in, craft vendors and a fireworks show.

Windsor Mayor George Stubbs is a member of the Town of Windsor Events Committee that planned the Summer Salute to Freedom, and he shared details of what to expect from the event.

He will deliver opening remarks at 3:30 p.m. at the Wesley F. Garris Event Park, which is located at 18 Duke St. in Windsor.

The Patriot Guard Riders, a group that honors military veterans and first responders, will be conducting a flag ceremony at the beginning of the festivities.

Stubbs said the annual Greg Willis Cruise-In will be held in the junior parking lot of Windsor High School right off of Duke Street next to the football field. Participants in the cruise-in will line up on the right-hand side of the lot.

Attendees will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite car in the cruise-in using a QR code, and first-, second- and third-place trophies will be handed out. Stubbs noted this will be the first time the cruise-in has featured these awards.

“So we hope we have some good turnout,” he said, adding that people should “bring their recently restored vehicles, and let them be judged on by the people that’s in attendance.”

The Kids’ Zone will be located almost directly across the street from the Windsor Library, which is also located at 18 Duke St. The zone will feature bounce houses, face painting and a rock-climbing wall.

Stubbs noted that the Events Committee responded to feedback that the event has been too spread out in the past.

“We’re trying to bring it all in one area as much as we can and still not make it too congested,” he said.

Next to Garris Event Park will be a lineup of food trucks, and they will include Wrap’d Up, Kona Ice, Johnson’s Bon Appétit, and possibly more.

Multiple musical acts will be performing in the park, with The Fun Doctors serving as the main act.

The fireworks show should start shortly after 9 p.m., and Stubbs said it is likely to last 15-25 minutes.

He noted that Windsor’s Fourth of July celebration is still in a rebuilding mode since the COVID-19 pandemic, and he issued an invitation for people throughout the area.

“We would like for everyone to come out,” he said. “We understand that it is the week before (the) Fourth of July, but we’d like to invite all of our residents and citizens in the town to come out and join us and support the events. The Events Committee has worked hard, and we’ve had several meetings in trying to bring all this together. 

“And years ago, we had people from Suffolk, we had people from Carolina, we had people a lot of times that came in and spent the day with us,” he added, “and we’d like to encourage everyone to please come out and try to support what we’re doing, and help us celebrate the salute to our freedom, because that’s what this is all about.”