Appreciating Cultures in Searcy

(Editor’s Note: Each year, Arkansas Business partners with the Arkansas Municipal League to present the Trendsetter City awards, which recognize exceptional initiatives underway in municipalities across the state. Large, medium and small-sized cities were honored in six categories: Diversity and Inclusion; Education/Workforce Development; Infrastructure and Water; Public Works/Environmental and Green Management; Technology and Security; and Tourism Development/Creative Culture. Below is one winner’s story. For more, click here.) 

Diversity and Inclusion
Winner • Over 20,000

The Challenge

Like many Arkansas cities, Searcy has seen an increase in the Hispanic population over the last several years, with the community becoming ever more crucial to the city’s economy. The Hispanic population has an outsized importance to multiple industries because they reinvest their earnings into Arkansas as they raise families, establish households and enter the school system. Despite being an integral part of daily life in Searcy, the Hispanic population is not always the most visible or represented.

The Solution

Searcy held its first public cultural event highlighting and including the Hispanic community in 2023, celebrating Cinco de Mayo. A collaborative effort between Beats & Eats, a series of public cultural events, and El Puente, an organization serving the needs of Searcy’s Spanish-speaking community, the event featured a mercado, a parade with a procession of the flags from all Spanish-speaking countries and food trucks. An estimated 5,000 people attended the event, which received positive feedback.

Community Love

When Beats & Eats and El Puente put forth the idea, not only did the city of Searcy support it, but staff members from the departments of parks and recreation, police, fire, and streets and sanitation sent in donations.

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