By Derek Hawkins and Marc Larocque

With the fall semester underway for most of Boston’s colleges, many of the city’s off-campus neighborhoods are again feeling the pressure brought by September’s influx of students. But a pair of community-oriented events that took place in Fenway and Jamaica Plain this weekend helped ease the tension, bringing students and permanent residents together as neighbors, not nuisances.

On Saturday afternoon, more than 100 Fenway community members gathered in the Fenway Victory Gardens, a seven-acre public garden a half-mile from Northeastern’s campus, for FensFest.

An annual celebration of the community and its gardens, residents have put on FenFest for more than 50 years.

Erich Weiss, a sophomore pharmacy major, decided to move off-campus this year and selected the Fenway without knowing any way to connect with the neighborhood.

Walking out of his Queensbury Street apartment Friday, Weiss was invited to the event by Gerry Cooper, a long-time Fenway resident and business owner in the area.

Weiss said he would attend.

“I was wondering if there was a prevalent community here,” he said.

The celebration lasted from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and featured a string trio, which provided a soundtrack of classical music, as well as artists who canvassed the lush landscape. The gardeners served sausage, hamburgers and salad — and planners of FensFest also supplied veggie burgers for the vegetarians, they said.

“It’s really nice to see people in the neighborhood, to get familiar with the faces,” Weiss said.

Suzanne Comtois, a long-time resident of Fenway, talked with Weiss and his friends and said she was pleased to see people Weiss’s age at the event.

“When I was younger, the older people and younger people didn’t get along,” Comtois said.

FensFest served as a one-day solution to the generation gap, allowing students to meet their new neighbors in Fenway.

“If only more people knew about it Northeastern and the community could be closer together,” said Bonnie Thryselius, president of the Fenway Gardening Society, the non-profit organization that manages the community garden. “It’d be even better if more students had a plot and were gardening.”

On Sunday, Jamaica Plain held its own event for community building – the 19th annual Jamaica Plain World’s Fair. Far larger and more elaborate than FensFest, the World’s Fair attracted thousands of community members who filled more than six blocks along Center Street, which bustled with music, dancing, street vendors and neighborhood activists from noon to 6 p.m.

Amid the smells of incense and Indian food, college students mingled with an ethnically and socially diverse crowd of older residents and families with young children.

“I think it’s important for students to not just assume they are part of the area, but to come to events like this to build community and see the diversity,” said Binh Le, a sophomore at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy (MCPHS).

Le, who lives with Northeastern students in Jamaica Plain, brought three freshmen as part of her duties as peer mentor for a first-year seminar class at MCPHS, which is taught to make new students acquainted with the school and the surrounding area.

Along with socialists, peace activists and abortion clinicians, representatives from neighborhood groups were present, trying to bring the community together. One community group, the Nametag Project, handed out nametags and encouraged people to know their neighbors.

One Northeastern middler who attended the World’s Fair said students, along with enjoying the culture, should do more than just attend events.

“There is a lot of problems and issues going on in the community,” said Lydia Vega, a human services major, who recently moved to Jamaica Plain. “Most students don’t get involved. Students should assist and help. Northeastern should be more involved. There are a lot of Latinos dropping out in this community because they don’t have mentors.”

At-large city councilor Felix Arroyo stood alone in front of a music stage on Center Street, greeting community members and handing out flyers for upcoming city elections. Arroyo, chair of the council’s New Bostonians and Youth Affairs committee, lauded the World’s Fair as a way to connect Jamaica Plain’s permanent residents with its student population.

“This is a celebration of diversity and the neighborhood,” he said. “Jamaica Plain has a legacy of diversity. This is a great opportunity for people to gather and meet their neighbors and the organizations here.”