The City of Fennville

The City of Fennville

The City of Fennville was first founded as a Village in 1889, and became a City in 1961. The city’s motto is "A Place to Grow", and in keeping with that motto, their City Commission has adopted the following mission and vision statements: 

• Vision: The City of Fennville strives to be a diverse and inclusive community which will grow and prosper through sustainable actions, to provide a home for generations. 
• Mission: To promote the diversity and growth of Fennville, and the Fennville area, to the community members and guests for the benefit of all. The city lives out that mission and vision statement through their eight adopted values and meet community needs with those values in mind: transparency, accountability, efficiency, openness, creativity, respect, inclusivity, and compassion. The city aims to work collaboratively with other community organizations to meet the full needs of community members.  

Fennville District Library (Capital Project Subrecipient) traces its roots to the Woman’s Club of Fennville which was founded in 1921. In 1922, the club began providing library services to Fennville residents and in 1948, a paid librarian was hired. In June of 1966, Clyde and Ganges Townships joined with the City of Fennville to establish and operate a district library. A fund was established for a new building twenty years later, in 1986. A district library organizational plan was approved by the Library of Michigan in 1989 and a new library was built and opened in 1990. New restricted boundaries were approved in 1994 with the addition of Casco Township and service contracts with Lee and Manlius Townships.

The library’s mission is to provide access to varied materials and services for lifelong enrichment. The library serves a rural population of 14,496 residents. This service area includes the City of Fennville and Casco, Clyde, Ganges, Lee and Manlius Townships. The library is the hub of the community and often the first organization to spot new and emerging needs. The library faithfully provides the services and resources and constantly tries to find ways to also fill needs unmet by other institutions in the community.

Fennville Public Schools was founded in 1898 and serves approximately 1,200 students from the City of Fennville and Manlius, Ganges, Lee, Valley, Clyde, Saugatuck, and Casco Townships. The school district offers numerous programs for the community’s youngest residents, including after school activities and academic support. Through the school district, they also offer temporary schooling for the children of the migrant workers who come to the Fennville area to work, and an extensive scholarship program through the Fennville Educational Foundation, which awards several hundred thousand in scholarships annually. The school district also operates the Fennville Area Community Recreation (Capital Project Subrecipient). Founded in 2003, the recreations program provides a free community athletic center (built 2019), an outdoor tennis and basketball court, and a variety of classes and sports camps.

Latin Americans United for Progress (LAUP) mission is empowering Latinos to participate in creating a better community for all through advocacy, education, and celebration. As early as the 50s and 60s, grassroots organizations were coming together to celebrate and build up the Latino community in West Michigan. In 1975, four of these organizations merged to form Latin Americans United for Progress. In 1986, LAUP was officially incorporated and recognized under 501(c)3 status and began to form the LAUP of today. They meet community needs through a variety of assistance programs and classes. Through this grant, the hope is to fully establish this programming in Fennville.

Capital project has several components: 

1. Library Components:

Expansion and reconfiguration of the parking lot at the Fennville District Library. Reconfiguration includes space for a community garden and community shed, including replacement of a replacement wall to protect the building's foundation. This project was started because of capacity issues at this community center, and has been in the works since 2019, with community input sessions and preplanning. The library staff worked with stakeholders to fully develop the proposal into what is seen today. 

2. City Components: 

The City Square Recreational Area is a large area of greenspace in the heart of downtown that the City has owned since 2003. In the past, the City has only had one park with recreational opportunities. Time and time again, the need from residents that they desire more recreational opportunities than the playground and the ballfields has come forward. Through exploring this need, the city of Fennville has identified this land as being ideal for a downtown recreation space. This will both provide a more varied built environment for residents and visitors but will also help provide economic opportunity for business owners who will benefit from the increased foot traffic.

Third Space is the amalgamation of free, safe, and interactive places outside of work and home. The old model of neighborhood revitalization revolved around creating infrastructure for efficiency, reducing the amount of community centers, both outdoor and indoor. The new model of neighborhood revitalization is focused more clearly on the effectiveness of public spaces, and the importance of well-designed public and collective built environments for the health and safety of residents and visitors. People need third spaces, and more importantly they need free third spaces. Through this project, the city will use public engagement to determine the best fits for recreational opportunities and build those third spaces. Some ideas that have been initially proposed include a splash pad, muraled dog park, and outdoor fireplace, amongst others. 

3. School Components: 

The outdoor tennis and basketball courts at the Community Athletic Center at Fennville Public Schools have long been functionally hazardous. As the community recreation board began to envision what could be done with this space, they consulted with focus groups and students to find out what types of additional sporting opportunities will be most valuable. A greater variety of sporting opportunities and better access to the courts were the ideas that came to the forefront. This project will repair and expand the sporting opportunities at these courts to include tennis, basketball, pickleball, and futsal, as well as expanding the sidewalk network to reach the courts and expanding the parking area so that residents outside of walkable distance have the ability to access this community center.