Berry College will welcome nearly 8,000 alumni, students, parents, faculty, staff and friends to Mount Berry this weekend for the annual Mountain Day celebration.

 The festivities began Friday and continue through Sunday for the annual celebration of founder Martha Berry’s birthday. A 5K Run and 2-Mile Health Walk, followed by the Mountain Day Convocation Service, kick off today’s events.

The convocation will begin at 10:30 a.m. at Frost Chapel with featured speaker Brian J. Brodrick, an All-American runner at Berry who now serves on the Berry College Board of Visitors.

The convocation will be followed by Berry’s traditional picnic at 11:30 a.m. The Grand March, one of the main events of the day, will begin at 1 p.m. and will include family fun activities such as live music, snow cones, inflatables and games.

Traffic is expected to be heavy. Visitors should plan to arrive early and allow sufficient time to drive or ride a shuttle to the Mountain Campus. More information, including traffic details, is available at www.berry.edu/alumni.

 For those who cannot attend the event in person, Virtual Mountain Day — available online at www.berry.edu/vmtnday — will begin at 1 p.m. today with streaming video of the Grand March live, and live chat will be accessible to anyone with a Twitter account. Include the hashtag #mtnday12 in the body of your tweet and your comments will appear in the chat box adjacent to the video screen.