We at the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability love the Range, just like you do. We want to see it thrive. We want our children and grandchildren, your children and grandchildren, and their future children to experience a robust Iron Range that is as safe and beautiful as we have known it.

Don’t you? Join us and sustain it for all our children.

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Our first “industrial scale” E-waste Collection Event was October 5, 2024 followed by our second major e-waste collection at Earth Fest 2025 and a third collection April 18, 2026 during this year’s Earth Fest!!! On a roll, folks!

To sign up as a vendor/exhibitor at earth fest 2026, see below.


The Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability is excited to announce the 2026 Iron Range Earth Fest to be held on Saturday, April 18th, 2026, at the Iron Trail Motors Event Center in Virginia, Minnesota.

Our 2026 theme is "No Place but Home ".

Earth Fest is the signature event of the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability. We celebrate Earth Fest with a nod to our organizational values:

  • Promote Sustainability

  • Bring People and Communities Together

  • Raise Awareness

  • Focus Locally

  • Engage Multiple Generations

  • Foster Personal and Planetary Health

IRPS' mission is to facilitate collaboration towards a sustainable and thriving Iron Range.  

We invite you to participate in Earth Fest 2026. If your business, organization, or group offers information, services, or products that highlight or promote:

  • sustainable living ideas, practices, products, solutions

  • local foods and products

  • local history, art, culture

  • fosters personal mind and body health and wellness

  • ecological planetary awareness

  • our regions natural world, wild spaces, places of geographic and recreational significance: water, bogs, forests, parks, & trails

  • fosters community building, engages multiple generations. 

Applicants are subject to approval by the Earth Fest Planning Committee.

Vendors/exhibitors will be in the Toyota arena and:

  • are encouraged to lean into our theme for our planet, our HOME because there's "No Place but Home"

  • Reduce or for go single-use plastic for your space and/or sales at Earth Fest. Please use this as an opportunity to think about how you can reduce the plastic that you use, and please don't hand out any plastic objects.

  • are encouraged to feature resources for personal, community, and ecological sustainability in their display. 

  • will be assigned a space of approximately 10 x 8 with one six-foot table and chair.

  • are assigned booth spaces on a first come, first served basis. We reserve the right to assign spaces as needed.

  • are encouraged to provide a children's activity at your booth.

To register:

  1. Complete this on-line google application. Link: https://forms.gle/t6eXcfeBY7MAB6hP9 

  2. send a check of $50 fee made out to IRPS (mailing address: Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability

    P.O. Box 1165 Virginia, Minnesota 55792)

    OR pay online for $55 via Stripe. Link: https://buy.stripe.com/14kdSmc2Fb4C1EscMM 

  1. Send a completed ST-19 form. Link: https://www.revenue.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/2024-12/st19.pdf

The Earth Fest Planning Committee will let you know we have received and approved your application.

Thank you and we are looking forward to seeing you again. Register soon because space is limited! 

IRPS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Earth fest is free for the public to attend, but it is not free for us to host the event. If you are a part of a business or organization that would like to help sponsor Earth Fest, please contact me!

We are looking forward to a great event!

In Sustainability,

Melissa Bakker Roach

Communications Director & Earth Fest Coordinator 

Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability

P.O. Box 1165

Virginia, Minnesota 55792