Oysters have been a part of Wareham's culture and economy for centuries, and at the end of this month they'll be getting the celebration they deserve with the first ever Wareham Oyster Festival.

From April 21-27, 16 local restaurants will provide special oyster dishes as part of an "Oyster Trail" leading up to a gala event on April 25, to be followed by the primary celebration on Main Street on Sunday the 27th.

"Part of the motivation for this was we have a significant restaurant industry but we also have a significant shellfish industry," said Bob Brady, president of the Wareham Village Association, the organization running the event.

Brady said the organization usually runs the Swan Festival every summer, but with this year's Summer of Celebration events, they decided to have a spring event instead.

"We want to accomplish bringing the community together," he said.

The actual festival (4/27, 11-4 p.m.) will feature music, select crafters and vendors, paddleboat and kayak rentals on the Wareham River, and (of course) plenty of shellfish and other foods. The event is meant to showcase not only the coastline and shellfish industry in Wareham, but also the recent renovations to Main Street, which will be one of the first things visitors traveling on the Cape Flyer will see when it makes its stop in town this summer.

"The best part has been the enthusiasm toward the festival," said Brady, referencing the dozens of event sponsors and participating restaurants all over town. An interactive map found at the Wareham Village Association’s website will show smartphone users the location of the next stop on the trail.

"You can see the creativity in the minds of the chefs," said Brady of each restaurant's offerings.

In addition to the dishes, the festival also features a 'Speaker Series' scheduled to run all week. It will feature authors talking about an oyster cookbook and chefs pairing shellfish with wine (amongst other info), and on April 24, members of the Massachusetts Oyster Project will be at Lindsey's Family Restaurant to speak about how they restored approximately 60 million oysters to the Wellfleet harbor as well as about their larger project of water protection on Cape Cod.

A complete schedule of Speakers Series events and locations are available at warehamvillage.org. The website has information on every festival event, including the Oyster Festival Gala, a fundraiser for the Wareham Village Association, which will be held from 5 to 9 p.m. on April 25 at the former Tobey Memorial Library.

On Sunday (before the festival proper begins), the day will be kicked off with the first ever Oyster Festival 5K on Sunday morning on a mostly flat and scenic course along the Wareham waterfront. The race starts and finishes right on Main Street where the festival will continue into the late afternoon. Registration is available online at active.com.

"We know there are people in the community who don't know about it, and we're marketing within our means, but we've achieved the response, support and involvement we wanted," Brady said. "Now it's just a matter of pulling it all off."