According to former employee of Park Yogurt senior Greta Long, the closure of Park Yogurt means there will be fewer opportunities for fundraising for school activities.

“Sadly there’s not going to be frozen yogurt right next door and (the owner) was big into fundraising,” Long said. “Basketball did a fundraiser there and the orchestra did (as well), so that will be different and they will have to find different places to fundraise,” Long said.

According to store owner Dave Pettit, the store brought fundraising and support to the community.

“My wife was really big into raising money for all the different sports and activities that are around school and she was big for PSI and Peter Hobart,” Pettit said. “And all those community things she raised money for constantly. So I think the community will miss the store.”

Long said the closing had been anticipated since the summer but wasn’t finalized until the beginning of the school year.

“I knew that she was trying to sell at the beginning of the summer and trying to sell by the end of summer. I knew she was for sure closing about two weeks ago,” Long said.

Pettit said there were several factors that played into the closing of Park Yogurt.

“One of the main reasons was the packaging cost the store a ton of money,” Pettit said. “We weren’t making as much money as we should. Finally, we just figured we were going to close.”

Senior Jackson Hand said he is somewhat indifferent about the closing but does recall good experiences from visiting the store.

“I never really went to Park Yogurt much, but I have mixed emotions about it. I never went there so I don’t care much, but I do care because the times I have went I got good service and stuff from everyone,” Hand said.

Pettit said he and his wife feel sad about having to close the store after building it up from scratch.

“We would have liked to stay open, but my wife kind of wanted to retire anyhow. So mainly we had these two problems and neither one of which we could correct. We just figured it’s time to just close it and retire,” Pettit said. “She was really sad because it was her baby she did it for five years, bought it along from nothing so we regretfully closed it.”

Sophomore Maya Lee said she feels sad about the closing of Park Yogurt and it means losing a place to spend time with friends.

“I’m really disappointed. It was a fun place to hang out, it was great you know got some nice frozen yogurt and I’m just sad, I’m disappointed,” Lee said.

Senior Lindsey Olson said overall, she thinks the convenience was good but the business wasn’t doing well.

“It’s a bummer because they just got there like five years ago and they didn’t get that much business,” Olson said. “I think it was too overpriced when they raised the prices but it was very convenient to drive up the road to go get yogurt.”

Lee said this affects some students by not having a close place to go after events and with the store being closed she will have to resort to other options available.

“I used to go there after every band performance so that kind of affects me because now I have to go to Dairy Queen,” Lee said.

Olson said during the summer it was nice that it was so close to the high school.

“It was nice in the summer after a sporting event when you can just walk over and get yogurt and chill. I’ll miss how close it was and I won’t miss the prices,” Olson said.