Rexburg Chamber hosts free festival to connect locals and students

REXBURG, Idaho (KIFI) - The community is invited to Porter Park for Experience Rexburg this Saturday, Sept. 19. The event is free and will be from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M.

"The idea is we have a lot of our merchants and things that are introducing their services to the students so that they know what's here," Rexburg Mayor Jerry Merrill said. "And then a lot of the local people come, just because it's a great time to be able to bring people together. And that's the whole idea."

This is an annual celebration hosted by the Rexburg Area Chamber of Commerce, their goal is to reconnect everyone, from long-time residents to BYU-Idaho students returning to campus, to the local businesses in Rexburg.

"We want to help support our local businesses, and we want to help promote them and help them obviously get more business," Alyssa Müller, the Member Services Coordinator of the Rexburg Chamber of Commerce, said. "Especially because a huge demographic here in Rexburg is the BYU students. And so we want them to know what Rexburg has for them."

Along with the local businesses there will be food trucks, raffles, and various activities, like a rock wall, for the whole family to check out.

The goal is to bring the college communities together with the local population.

"Back in the day, we used when we had intercollegiate sports at Ricks College," Mayor Merrill explained. "That's kind of what brought the community together was the football games and the basketball games and things like that. And when that went away, it almost seemed like we had sort of two separate communities. And one of my goals when I first became mayor was to try to bring the communities together a little bit more."

Alyssa reflects that being an out of state student could be difficult, so learning all about Rexburg's offerings could be a great support.

"I was out of state when I came to school. So 100% we want all the new freshmen because we definitely want to show them that they have access to so much here."