Beats & Eats, a monthly event in Downtown Searcy featuring live music, food trucks, vendors and games in the lot behind Think Idea Studio, is partnering with the Harding Campus Activities Board (CAB) for the event on Friday, Oct. 20 to welcome Harding students as well as the Homecoming crowd to this community event.

Marka Bennett, a Beats & Eats coordinator, is a Harding alumna, hopes that Harding supports this event in its efforts to unite the community.

“We wanted to provide not just a place for our residents of Searcy, but for students at Harding just to have a fun place to go on a Friday night when there’s nothing else to do,” Bennett said. “We just have many wonderful individuals here who have a variety of talents, so it’s been a fun place to show that off and make people have a sense of pride about their community.”

Bennett continued to state that she hopes this event allows the community to take their minds off of the negative things that are happening on the news, and to take this time to enjoy fellowship with community.

With the help of CAB, Beats & Eats is featuring Harding this month with student volunteers, singers and vendors.

The band Sawyer’s Mill, sophomore Dara Niemi and freshman Austin Varner will be among the student performers.

Junior Sawyer Jones and his band Sawyer’s Mill recently released new music that they will be performing for the event.

“I think it’s a good way to draw the community together because it’s a good stuff that people in the community will like as well as college students,” Jones said. “So it’ll be a good time to get away and maybe connect a little bit. I feel like there’s a disconnect between the community and the university, so they’re trying to bridge that gap a little bit.”

While CAB is hosting this event, senior Kelsey Dunavin, CAB co-director, assures that CAB is mainly there to support the students who are involved.

“I don’t think we’re going to change it, I just think we’re going to add onto it so that all the different communities will still contribute what they normally contribute,” Dunavin said. “Students who wants to be a vendor or just go buy food will just be able to contribute more people so that there’s … more profit for all the businesses that are there because of the amount of people who will be there.”