A Salina business owner really likes Smoky Hill Festival T-shirts!

He bought them all as a donation to the River Festival – so in turn festival staff began giving them away.

“I was blown away by the generosity,” Salina Arts & Humanities Executive Director Brad Anderson said over the telephone Wednesday. “Many folks left a donation with us as well as they picked up the shirts.”

Anderson said he has about 50 shirts of various sizes left and was headed over to Ad Astra Books and Coffee House, 141 N. Santa Fe to make them available for free on a first come first served basis. Staff and volunteers had been selling the shirts this week off the back loading dock at the Smoky Hill Museum.

Before the bands could play – the 44th Annual Smoky Hill River Festival fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic in late March. Boxes of over 1,100 Festival T-shirts arrived just after the announcement was made by Anderson.