The Charleston City Council approved the closing of multiple streets for a 5K and 2.5K race at their meeting Tuesday.

One set of streets will be closed during the hours of 8:30 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. for a 2.5K race on Saturday Oct. 22 beginning at the corner of Seventh Street and Lincoln Avenue.

These beginning streets will be closed, as well as the streets north on Seventh Street to Madison Avenue; west on Madison Avenue to Sixth Street; and south on Sixth Street ending at Lincoln Avenue.

This is the 17th year the race will be happening. It is sponsored by the recreation administration department and is part of Eastern’s Homecoming Week festivities.

The other street closure is for the Holiday Hustle 5K from 8:30 a.m. to noon Saturday, Dec. 3.

The streets will be closed along the race route. The race will start at Old Main, then go east to Seventh Street, south from Seventh Street to Johnson Avenue, east on Johnson Avenue to Ninth Street, south on Ninth Street to Taft Avenue, and west on Taft Avenue to Fourth Street, before going north on Fourth Street to the Panther Trail.

Participants will then follow the Panther Trail through the parking lot of O’Brien Field to Grant Avenue, go west on Grant Avenue to Fourth Street, north on Fourth Street to the sidewalk between Pemberton Hall and the Physical Science Building, and go down the Sidewalk to finish at Old Main. All of the aforementioned streets will be affected by the closure.

Also at the meeting, $600 in tourism funds were approved for the Embarras River Valley Film Festival for advertising purposes. The film festival, set for Wednesday, Nov. 2 through Friday, Nov. 4, is in its 12th year. This year’s topic is “For All the World to See II: Film Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights.”

In the past, the festival has focused on films involving people from Illinois and Eastern.

It began in 2004 as “Gregg Toland Day.”

Gregg Toland was a cameraman who grew up in Charleston and worked on films such as “Citizen Kane” with actor Orson Welles and “The Grapes of Wrath.”

The festival will take place in Coleman Auditorium.

Christopher Pickard can be reached at 581-2812 or cgpickard@eiu.edu.