Bethel University is once again recruiting students at the Minnesota State Fair, this year in a double-wide booth in the Education Building. The State Fair attracts more than 100,000 people a day and Senior Vice President for Communications and Marketing Sherie Lindvall says it’s an opportunity to interact with many of those attendees who come from all over the Upper Midwest. Approximately 100 students, staff, and faculty members representing all four schools of Bethel help staff the booth during the 12-day event.

For the second year, Bethel’s popular giveaway is a choice of awareness bracelets in an array of seven colors, each imprinted with one of the seven core values of Bethel University: Christ-follower, character-builder, truth-seeker, learner, salt and light, reconciler, and world-changer. A display behind the bins of wristbands contains a color key briefly paraphrasing what each value means, and a coordinating brochure listing Bethel academic programs also tells about seven students, each living out one of the values. By noon on Thursday, August 27, the day’s allocated supply of 1,800 wristbands was gone and had to be restocked from campus.

“People love the bracelets,” says Lindvall. “It’s amazing to see them stop and ponder which value they identify with most. Whether they’re people of faith or not, there’s seems to be a value with which everyone can resonate.”

Eva Rodelius C’10, the student in Communications and Marketing who is coordinating Bethel’s State Fair booth, reports that several people came to the booth wearing their choice of Bethel wristband from last year, and wanted to add another one to their collection. “The core values really start good conversations,” says Rodelius. “I even heard a little boy say to his mother as they were walking away, ‘Mom, what’s a Reconciler?’”

For the first time, Bethel is also giving away ecologically-friendly fabric tote bags at scheduled intervals three times a day.