The Bowling Green (BG) community rallies together to welcome the incoming class to the town through the continued partnership between the university and the city.
On Saturday, Aug. 23, Main Street in downtown BG was filled with students and community members in an event that brings together the town and university.
“Our partnership with the city is really important to us as a Bowling Green State University (BGSU) community and as our new students are welcomed down to campus, we want to make sure to show them the importance of that,” Alexis Lange, Assistant Director of Student Engagement and Residence Life, said.
With the event happening downtown, students flocked from campus and were able to walk Main Street to see the shops, restaurants and activities downtown BG has to offer.
“I recommend students to come to events like this because the BGSU community is so much broader than just campus and this encompasses it and they really get to see all the opportunities that they have over the next four years to experience,” Lange said.
The event featured minigolf, free giveaways at tents, food trucks and more. Many BG businesses and organizations had tents that showed students what they had to offer.
“We have a giant slide and a zip line. You can get your caricature drawn, put it up in your new residence hall room,” Lange said. “We have a pep rally going on at 6 o’clock, so we’re really excited to have the BGSU band and the BG High School band playing together today and showing us some of the work that they put in over the summer.”
To kick off the pep rally, BG Mayor Mike Aspacher, BGSU President Rodney Rogers and BGSU Head Football Coach Eddie George gave a speech further unifying the two parts of Bowling Green and welcoming the incoming students.
If students missed this event, there will be more happening in the coming months. A large city-wide event, the Black Swap Arts Festival will be happening on Sept. 5 through the 7. It will include art vendors, food trucks and live music. In contrast to this local city event, BGSU will be putting on one of its largest events in two weeks.
“BGSU Homecoming is coming up here in just two weeks, another one that we really welcome the community to join us to. It is September 12 to the 14 and for that we have events on campus all weekend long,” Lange said.
