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On Sept. 15, downtown Easton invites students to venture down the hill for Lafayette Day in the Square. The day will feature free food, music, and a host of other unique and delicious promotions for students to welcome them to the area.
This all-day event is a unique opportunity for students to explore and engage downtown Easton as a home away from home. Shuttle service will be provided continuously throughout the day in front of the Williams Center for the Arts, stopping at Centre Square and Riverside Park.
Local businesses will reach out to students with discounts and other special offerings. Maps of downtown that specify where to find these locations will be made available to students, along with information on contests happening throughout the day in conjunction with the event.
In Centre Square, students will find food and beverages from Wegman’s, local caricature artists, and, from 6-8 p.m., live music from a local band. All of these are free and open to the public.
The event also coincides with Easton’s Riverside Festival of the Arts in Riverside Park, a two-day celebration of the arts that includes poetry readings, live performances, and arts and craft displays.
Brightly colored Lafayette posters will be on display in the windows of local businesses, and welcome banners will be hanging over specific street intersections.
The event is being sponsored by the Promotions and Marketing Committee of the Easton Main Street Initiative. The committee is responsible for promoting and advertising special events for all of downtown Easton.
Easton’s Main Street Initiative is dedicated to preserving, nurturing and celebrating the heritage, history, attractiveness, and community of downtown Easton. Their vision is maintained through the active partnership between local governments, businesses, educational institutions, non-profit community based organizations, and the residents of Easton. They hope to revitalize Easton into a place of greater economic opportunity, creative endeavors, and community vitality.
“Downtown wants to embrace Lafayette as part of the community,” says Kim Kmetz, director of the Promotions and Marketing Committee and Easton’s Main Street Manager, “as well as demonstrate to the students that we are a ‘college town’ with a lot to offer.”
Easton’s Main Street Initiative has perceived the necessity of making Easton’s “college town” characteristics more visible for some time as a way of reaching out to Lafayette students.
“We are two communities that need each other,” explains Kmetz. “Easton is a strong community with a lot to offer students and students have a lot to bring here as well.”
Kmetz comments on the benefits of being a college town.
“The influx and culture of young people brings good things to any community,” she says. “Students who are already involved in the Easton community and have served on committees and projects have enhanced this place greatly. With that, students who have truly engaged and explored Easton have found very quaint places they say they ‘never knew were here.’”
“There are a lot of gems in downtown Easton that I don’t think students know about,” says Donna Krivoski, director of parent programs and assistant director of development, and member of the Promotions and Marketing Committee. “I think that, given the opportunity, students will like what they see.”
Krivoski explains that the committee is working to foster the relationship between Lafayette and Easton by making Lafayette’s presence more visibly potent in the community.
“We are encouraging local businesses to post Lafayette signs and memorabilia in their windows and throughout their stores throughout the year,” she says. “We are also working toward posting an article in every edition of the Lafayette about upcoming events and festivals in Easton as well as advertisements for some of the great restaurants and coffee shops around here. The kiosk in downtown is already featuring a display for Lafayette, which is great.”
“There is life beyond the college campus,” Kmetz states. “There is a community with delights, issues, plenty of ways to get involved as well as plenty of places to live afterwards. Students can feel comfortable and welcome – and needed – while they’re here. Hopefully some of them will feel comfortable enough to stay.”