This year’s annual Summerfest in downtown Big Rapids gathered the community for a chance to come together and enjoy themselves.
On August 23, the Big Rapids community hosted the summer festival, which included many activities for everyone to enjoy, including free food, face painting and much more. The festival brought together many people, including parents, children, seniors and especially Ferris students.
The summer fest holds many aspects for anyone to experience. As people walked down the street, they were able to enjoy free lemonade, face paintings and snow cones. Students could also enjoy looking at cars throughout the day with the car show.
Students got the chance to look through the parking lot nearby to find many different booths selling an array of items from everyday home supplies and clothes to homemade fudge and jams.
Environmental biology junior Janelle Lekies’ attended the previous two Summerfests and said she enjoys coming to the festival to hang out with friends, along with the free stands and being able to buy goods for an affordable price.
“I like the vendors and I enhoy to thrift,” Lakies said. “There are a bunch of other free stuff and good deals on stuff like TV’s and kitchenware with the vendors.”
Students can find many low-cost items for their resident hall or apartments, including dishware sets, appliances like mini-fridges, microwaves and air fryers and assorted pots and pans.
Ferris students got the opportunity to have fun with their friends before school started while exploring downtown Big Rapids.
First-year pharmacy student Stella Clark was invited to the summer fest to catch up with her friends before classes started.
“I was looking forward to spending time with friends again after a long summer,” Clark said. “They do a lot of community events that everyone is invited to, and I find that cool.”
The summer festival was supported by multiple vendors in the neighborhood to make this event successful. The organization in charge of planning Summerfest is VocaLyrica, the women’s chorus in Big Rapids. This group made up of the women’s community chorus, used the festival to fundraise enough money to help pay for children in Big Rapids to get singing lessons and scholarships for local children to go to music camps.
One of the group members of the women’s chorus VocaLyrica Carol Hillman is a former Ferris graduate, and she thinks that the summer fest and events like it are an opportunity to be able to donate and connect with the community while also being able to find cheap dorm and apartment needs.
“I love it when Ferris student come through here, because they’re looking for pots and pans, and looking for a mini fridge,” Hillman said. “So, it’s great fun when they come through.”
Summerfest brought in multiple businesses around Big Rapids to one place to advertise their business by having their name get out there and being able to connect with the local and student community.
One of the businesses that came to the summer fest was the Yellow Window, a restaurant that brought out its food truck to sell a variety of brisket and pulled pork dishes. The restaurant’s owner Tammy Springs worked at Ferris State in food service.
Springs thought the summer fest was a fantastic opportunity for Ferris students and the people of Big Rapids to connect and become closer as an overall community.
“You’ve got to bring the community together with everything going on in the world,” Spring said. “It’s just nice to intermingle, especially with all the Ferris students coming back.”
There will also be an event similar to Summerfest during Labor Day weekend, which includes a car show, arts and crafts and more. This event will happen in downtown Big Rapids from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.