AUBURN — The goal is to offer fun and entertainment for all ages.

So says Advocates for Children Executive Director Betsy Norcross Plourde of the agency’s 25th annual Holiday Festival for Children to be held Saturday, Dec. 4, at St. Dominic Academy.

Advocates, which has provided programs and services to parents and children in Androscoggin County for more than 30 years, will be joined by 15 other community agencies that will contribute free crafts for children to make and take home.

“This event is truly a community effort,” said Plourde, noting members of the Lewiston Maineiacs will participate as well as Masons, who will offer child IDs — “which is an important way to help keep kids safe.”

The Youth Fiddlers, led by veteran musician Greg Boardman, will begin the day’s entertainment at 9:30 a.m. as the opening act for longtime children’s entertainer Rick Charette.

“I’ll be showing up with a wide range of fiddlers, from grade school through college. These are students I have worked with over the years that particularly love fiddle music,” said Boardman.

One such up-and-coming student is Hannah Rodrigue, a freshman at Central Maine Community College, who apprenticed with Boardman last year. “She is a heck of a fiddler and a very busy and involved local musician,” Boardman said.

As for himself, Boardman said he is “up to the usual tricks, teaching privately, in Lewiston schools, at Bates College, the Maine Fiddle Camp, the Vineyard Kids Camp, plus helping out with worship music at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Mechanic Falls.”

Also providing entertainment will be yo-yo champ Brandon Baines and Josh Sawyer of Sparks’ Ark.

Charette and his crew are coming off a busy touring season throughout the state. The popular singer-songwriter is working on his 12th CD of original songs for children. During his 10:15 a.m. performance, he will perform some new material along with traditional festival favorites.

Baines, who has been busy studying and working, placed fifth in a Massachusetts yo-yo contest.

Sawyer works with his father, caring for sick and injured wild animals until they can be released. They also remove “nuisance wild animals, anything from bats in people’s bedrooms to skunks in their bathrooms to woodchucks eating their gardens,” Sawyer said.

At 1 p.m., Sparks’Ark will offer a variety of “pets,” from cats and dogs to ferrets, lizards, snakes and goats. “I will have some cute cuddly little guys and then some animals you wouldn’t want to pet, let alone hold,” said Sawyer. “Plus, if some of our moms-to-be cooperate in time, I may have a brand new baby with me to show off and feed from a bottle while I am there.”

Also at the festival will be Percy’s Burrow, Discovery Toys, a free bounce house and cake walk, and the Heart Gallery, professional portraits of children in state custody who are awaiting adoptive homes, brought to the festival by Phil Dubois of Second Best Ministries.

The photos are displayed in public venues in hopes of recruiting permanent, loving homes for these children. “The Heart Gallery has proven to be an effective means of finding homes for many children. Stop by the display to see some of Maine’s children who need forever homes,” said Dubois.

The festival will run from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tickets are $6 for adults, $4 for children in advance; $8/$5 at the door. Tickets are available at Advocates for Children, 57 Birch St., Lewiston, and Hannaford stores in Lewiston-Auburn. For more information, call 783-3990.

Yo-yo champ Brandon Baines