Every third Friday in July mark the Dog Daze N’ Cruise-In in Ravenna, Michigan, an annual summer celebration of the town. About a thousand people showed up this year for the car show, food, raffles, beverages tent, free eye exams, kids games, bounces houses, kid tractor pull, face paint and many more with most of the vendors who represent different groups withinin the community. July 20th 2018 marked the 8th year of the event, let’s take a look.

Video - Ravenna Dog Daze N Cruise-In 2018

The Ravenna Lions Club is the organization that started Dog Daze, it begun as a “party in the park” style event, today it occupies several streets in town. The event is also supported by a variety of local groups and businesses to make it possible. While the Lions club oversees the event and hosted a 50/50 raffle this year, they’ve invited different groups in area to do raffles and food as a way to raise additional funds they needed for the year. Five local churches were involved in several areas, the variety and youth sports were doing raffle and foods, the FFA were doing a craft area with 22+ plus booths, the Ravenna Leos were in charge of the kid’s area with 10+ free kids games, 4 inflatables, kids tractor pull and two selfie booths. At the same time, The Leos were also collecting canned food for M.A.R.S (their local food bank), the Lions of Michigan brought their Kid’s Sight Trailer with provided free eye exams, while local firefighters were selling pork dinner for fund raising. Amanda Vandermolen - president of the Ravenna MI Lions club added “While this event does not net the Lions Club a lot of money, we view it as a way to give back to the community and bring them together.”

Derek Wong / The Muskegon Channel 2018