Concordia’s eighth annual Dinner and a Movie event draws hundreds from the community
Students and community members prepare for the movie to begin.
Photo credit: Michaela Gibbs
By Michaela Gibbs
Hundreds of Seward community members gathered with Concordia faculty, staff and students Friday night for the 2026 annual Dinner and a Movie on the front lawn of Weller Hall, enjoying food truck fare, vendors and activities like corn hole and face painting prior to watching the movie “Rio.”
“The event was really born out of a desire to engage the Seward community with Concordia’s community,” said Jen Furr, Concordia’s senior director of outreach. “We started doing Dinner and a Movie, and everybody from families here in Seward community to students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of Concordia all come out for an evening of food, fun and fellowship,” said.
Concordia’s Student Activities Council schedules the event, selects the movie and arranges free popcorn.
Students and community members enjoy fellowship before the movie begins. Photo: Michaela Gibbs.
Assistant Director of Student Life and SAC staff representative Nick Wiles said the gathering is helpful for new students at Concordia.
“I think that it is helpful for them [new students] to see that Concordia is not just an island here in Seward, but that they are part of not only the Concordia community, but the Seward community more broadly, and it’s [Dinner and a Movie] a lot of fun.”
Other student groups on campus also assisted with this event, including Paul Scholars, Concordia Film Club and Concordia’s PRAISE! bands, which provided live music.
Senior Ella Brandt and freshman Naomi Truwe, members of the Film Club, said their club chose Dinner and a Movie as their community outreach event.
“It sounded like a great time to meet people and help everybody out,” Truwe said.
Food vendors came from Seward and the surrounding area, such as The Wagon Wheel based out of Dwight, Nebraska.
“We really pride ourselves on assisting the small community around us,” said co-owner Niclole Malina. “We do a lot in Seward, so when we got reached out to about Concordia, it was easy for us to say, ‘absolutely, yes.'”
Furr said the event also was a chance for Concordia students to shine.
“The goal is just to share our mission in ministry with the community at large, and I just think it’s a great opportunity for college students to be role models to some of the younger kids in the community as to what it’s like to be young Christian adults and to share in fellowship with one another and just to have fun,” she said.
