Monthly Archives: October 2025

Local Fruitport Church Hosts Annual Fall Festival

by Kim Holtrop

Calvary Church in Fruitport hosted their annual Fall Festival this past weekend, October 25, 2025, from 5-7pm. It was a free event, designed to welcome the Fruitport community and let them enjoy the fall season in a safe environment.

This fun event included various carnival games with candy prizes, a bounce house for smaller kids, a bonfire with marshmallows, and snacks like cotton candy and popcorn, among other fun fall activities. The church organized the event, with dozens of volunteers from the congregation helping make it possible.

Fruitport Bands Second Annual Spooktacular

by Kim Holtrop

Fruitport High School Bands are sponsoring their second annual Spooktacular fundraising arts and crafts show on Sunday, October 26, 2025 from 11am-4pm. It will be held at Fruitport High School, 357 N. 6th St. in Fruitport. This fun Halloween event will include musical performances from all bands from 5th through 12th grade, a craft show featuring 35 vendors (and counting), raffles and a silent auction, carnival games, a bake sale, a trunk or treat, and a costume contest. To participate in the trunk or treat, which begins at 3pm, RSVP to Kari Houseman Rasey at jackkarirasey@gmail.com. There will be prizes for both the trunk or treat and the costume contest. Admission is either a non-perishable Thanksgiving food donation or $1.00. Donations will go to a local charity.

Village Council to Consider Fruitport District Library Renovations

by Kim Holtrop

The Fruitport District Library Board has been considering renovating the library in Pomona Park for the past several years, and have just met with the Village Council to confer on this issue.

The library board has been working with local architects Matt Wakely and Kyle Osterhart to brainstorm tentative renovation ideas for the library. At first unsure of whether the library could feasibly remain in Pomona Park, the board considered several other locations for the library, but the option that best fit the community’s wants and needs, as well as the library’s needs, was to keep the Pomona Park location.

From October 2023 through May 2024, Matt Lubbers-Moore, the FDL director, along with the library board, conducted a six-month survey which asked residents of the Fruitport area what they thought about the various facets of the proposed renovation. Over 50 percent of respondents wanted to keep the library in the park, a sentiment likewise held by the most of the library board members. Many respondents also expressed their desires to see positive changes brought to the library, such as increased parking, handicap accessibility, an improved septic tank, more accessible restrooms, more space for books, a larger community room, study space, a children’s area, among other things.

In the October 20 Village Council meeting, the present library board members, along with Matt Wakely, made their request to the council to keep the library in Pomona Park. The council unanimously decided to grant this request, and the two groups will reconvene in the following months to look at more detailed schematics for the proposed renovations.

In a statement released alongside the survey results, the library board stated that funding for the renovations “will be done through saving, fundraising, grant writing, and other means other than raising taxes,” and that “the library has no plans to raise the community’s taxes.”

For more information on the Fruitport District Library, visit fruitportlibrary.org or call 231-366-6107.