There's no better way to bring a community together than with food, fun and music, especially when a good cause is involved.

Tonight and Saturday night, the Penn State Mentors will celebrate their relationship with the African American Support Group of State High as they host the second annual Grown Folks' Community Nite, a fundraiser for the groups' students to attend the Historically Black College Tour.

Today and tomorrow's events begin at 7 p.m. in VFW Hall, 139 N. Barnard St., and will feature cabaret-style entertainment, including a DJ and a live blues band from Ohio.

Elaine Richardson, Penn State professor and Penn State Mentors adviser, said the event started as a way to bring together different parts of the State College community and raise money for the college tour.

Besides providing funds for the State High group's college tour, the mentoring program also focuses on providing a link between African-American students of State High and African-American students from Penn State.

"The mentors meet with the high school students every week and discuss issues such as race and higher education," Richardson said. "As minorities in a predominantly white school, these students need someone from the outside to listen to them, especially if they're dealing with issues that the school may not know how to handle."

Assata Richards (graduate-sociology), a mentor to the high school program, said she was impressed with the students' willingness to create a support group for themselves.

"It was their idea to create the group in the first place," Richards said. "Being their mentor is wonderful because I get to have a relationship with a larger community outside of the Penn State campus."

One of the mentoring program's main focuses is to promote higher education to the support group's students, which, as Richards said, is why the Historically Black College Tour is so important. "The tour is such a powerful experience because it enables these students to see whole [universities] of African American students and be a part of that history," Richards said.

Cara Williams (graduate-English), a two-year participant of the mentoring program, said tonight's fundraiser is also about bringing different parts of the community together, as well as supporting higher education.

"It's great to see faculty and staff and graduate students all together in that sort of social setting," Williams said. "We're able to connect on a different level that we don't usually get."

Richardson summed up the night's activities in once sentence. "Basically, we just eat and shake our booties," she said.