A Suffolk church will bring back a feel-good celebration of yesteryear this weekend.

Metropolitan Baptist Church, 125 County St., will hold an old-fashioned May Day celebration on Saturday. The celebration will be free and open to the public with games, food, music and dancing from 2 p.m. to approximately 5 p.m.

May Day is an international holiday that celebrates the beginning of spring and is typically celebrated on May 1. Traditions observed in Europe and the United States include dancing around a tall, wooden maypole and crowning a May Queen.

“It used to be an event that all the schools would participate in that would usher in spring,” said the Rev. Donald Everett, the church youth pastor of education.

Jasmine Myrick, a 12-year-old church member and the vice president of the junior youth council, will be the May Queen for the festival. Other children will wrap material of bright, spring colors around the maypole as they move in unison.

Everett said he was inspired by the May Day celebrations of his childhood as a Suffolk student.

“I remember being in it when I was in school,” he said. “It was a beautiful event.”

Food will be served, including Ice cream floats and cupcakes. Children and adults will dance and sing to the music on the church grounds, have their faces painted and play games like “Mother May I?” and “Tug of War.”

“The old games,” Everett said.

He said the event will be also be a treat for the older revelers that enjoyed May Days in their childhoods.

“Some of those that will attend were May Queens themselves,” he said.

The celebration is meant to bring back the unity, purity and good feelings of those celebrations years ago that are hard to find in today’s world, according to Everett.

“We live in a time now where our youth are far removed from those things that we consider pure and enjoyable,” he said. “Things that really meant something. This is an opportunity to go back, revisit and relive them.”

The coordinator for the event is Audrey Watson. Call 539-2696 for more information.