Eye of the Eagle Art played host on Saturday to its first “Our Green Earth” in downtown Clayton. Bonnie Light and her daughter, Donna Pfledderer, manage the business, which hosts classes and workshops for aspiring artists.

Light and Pfledderer wanted to make the community aware of the importance of preserving the environment.

“We are just here today to introduce the arts and bring people downtown,” Pfledderer said. “Also, ‘Our Green Earth’ is to be more green.”

The Johnston Soil and Water Conservation Service and the Johnston County Cooperative Extension Service handed out brochures and offered recycling tips to the crowd. Other organizations, such as the JoCo Artist Guild and the Johnston County Arts Council, gave children pictures to color, made butterflies out of coffee filters and passed out stickers. Hand-painted trashcans with cats, fish and a Red Hat lady were auctioned off to the highest bidders.

Griffin Lloyd, 6, of Selma enjoyed creating an environmental sculpture with artist Cheryl McCardle. His mother, Kitty Ann Lloyd, and grandmother, Mary Lavoie, shopped for plants to give to Griffin’s 18 classmates at Neuse River Charter School. Kitty Ann wanted the children to plant the trees in their yards.

“I think it’s important to get involved in small community events,” she said. “We want to support them and hope this is something they do every year.”

Learning about recycling was interesting to Griffin, Kitty Ann said.

“He learned about the items you can recycle and how long it takes for them to break down in the landfill and what happens if you don’t recycle them,” she said. “That was really good for him with the age he is at.”

Other visitors could not keep their eyes off Bianca, a 41-year-old steppe eagle, and several owls from the American Wildlife Refuge. The Raleigh-based nonprofit group rescues injured raptors and uses them for educational presentations at school, festivals and museums. Director Steve Stone and volunteer Amy Gallagher talked about the owl habitat, survival skills and keen hearing.

“You don’t sneak up on an owl,” Stone said. “It can’t happen. A lot of people think owls see better in the nighttime, but they don’t see that much better because they can hunt with the sound.”

Seeing the birds was a thrill for Elizabeth Insignares and her daughters, Isabella, Sophia and Amanda.

The children, dressed in their favorite colors, donned star-shaped sunglasses and colored pictures of the earth. They immediately showed off their work to Insignares and ran off to see Bianca again before going home.

“Anything earth-friendly, I try to take them to because the future is in their hands literally,” Insignares said.

“Someone has to correct all the damage that has been done.”