HOUSTON — A beloved local festival is returning to the Houston community after a year of canceled events.

“It feels great to be able to provide a fun day for the people in our Houston community, and especially the kids. I know the kids miss that day and they look forward to it during the summertime,” festival committee member Stephanie Merickel said.

This year’s Houston Community Classics festival will be held from 10 a.m. to midnight Saturday, June 19, at the Hardin-Houston Local School grounds. Admission to the festival is free but cost of various activities and food and drink is cash only, and festival attendees can expect similar attractions from previous years such as all-day musical entertainment.

One of the challenges with planning this year’s festival was waiting to make decisions — Merickel said that many of the decisions made for the festival, such as scheduling entertainment, were made later than they normally would have been.

“Other than that, we feel like everybody is excited to move forward and get things rolling again,” Merickel said.

Merickel added that the return of the festival has brought a positive response from the community, and the festival remains an opportunity for everyone to get together, socialize, relax with friends and family and enjoy the live entertainment, food and beverages.

“Everybody’s excited about getting back out there. We get to have it there at the school, and it’s a nice place for the whole community to get together, on hopefully a nice day,” Merickel said. “It’s a very family-oriented day, and as the evening rolls on, there’s live music so if the kids go home, the adults can have some time to hang out, dance, have some beers and enjoy themselves.”

Fittingly, the festival is a community effort, with support coming from various community and school-based organizations to put the festival together. The same support that has been seen in years past is as strong as ever this year, and Merickel said that the festival holds strong importance as the only major community-based event in Houston.

“I think that the festival is important to the community, because it’s the only major event we have in Houston, aside from school events, that bring the whole community together. We have involvement from the Houston Community Association, involvement from the school, involvement from various churches and school organizations to run a cohesive event that should appeal to people of all ages,” Merickel said.

The Houston Community Classics schedule of events is as follows:

• 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.: Jumpies

• 10 a.m.: Registration for Kiddie Tractor pull

• 11 a.m.: Kiddie Tractor pull

• 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.: Food vendors open

• Noon to 8 p.m.: Fricker’s Kids Fun Zone

• Noon to 6 p.m.: Dunk Tank

• Noon to Midnight: Beer Stand

• 1 to 5 p.m.: Music Bingo

• 2 p.m.: Second attendance raffle drawing

• 4 p.m.: Third attendance raffle drawing

• 5 to 7 p.m.: Danny Schneible opens

• 8 p.m.: Final attendance raffle drawing

• 8 p.m. to Midnight: Plaiditude, the headlining band for the festival, performs