A Presidential Inauguration and a community-wide block party all in one weekend? How can one even begin to wrap their head around all of that? Although I am a junior, this was the first year I have attended the annual block party. For the past two years, I have had my friends tell me, over and over, how much fun block party was. I was not able to make it the past two years because of pre-scheduled family events but because this year seemed to be more extravagant, I made sure I would be present. I went in thinking it would be super busy, with lots of people, and tons of things to do. While some of those statements were true, I found myself with a feeling of wanting more.  

Before I continue, I have to preface my statement with some extra information. I didn’t attend block party as a regular attendant. I attended block party as a volunteer to manage different stations for different organizations I am a part of. As a result, I wasn’t able to really walk around and interact with the different stations, as the rest of the student body would. I loved to see all the different student organization tables, along with other events such as the living statues, the inflatables, 9-square, and archery tag. I thought that all of those were really fun. I also learned that the addition of food trucks was new this year, and I thought that was a nice way to bring more people from the community to the BVU campus.  

The main thing that I had issues with was the advertisements that made block party seem like it was going to be bursting with people from the community, with tons of interaction to be had with all involved. In my experience, that was false advertising. Keeping in mind that I do not have any prior background on attendance from previous block parties, I felt like there was not nearly as many community members present as I was expecting. I was hoping to see new faces everywhere I looked, but instead, I kept seeing faces from campus. Please don’t get me wrong, I love seeing people from campus out and about in public, but block party was a prime opportunity for the Storm Lake community to see what BVU and its student organizations have to offer and in my opinion, that opportunity didn’t reach its full potential. As a result, I find myself asking the following question: “If the celebration of the University’s 18th President isn’t enough to bring the community members to BVU, what will?”