PORTAGE, Ind. — Families filled Imagination Glen Park on Saturday, Oct. 10, for the city’s seventh annual Light Up the Gourds, GreatNews.Life reported the same day. Maxwell Barath’s account described a Halloween trail of statues, decorations, and community-carved jack-o-lanterns, a trunk-or-treat near the park entrance, sponsor tents and minigames, and food trucks.
| Item | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Event | 7th Annual Light Up the Gourds | GreatNews.Life, Oct. 10; Portage Parks calendar |
| Date | Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026 | GreatNews.Life, Oct. 10; parks calendar date field |
| Hours (parks calendar) | 5–9 p.m. | Portage Parks calendar (EID 2838) |
| Place | Imagination Glen — West, 2275 McCool Road, Portage | Portage Parks calendar; facility page |
| Theme (parks listing) | “A Classic Halloween” | Portage Parks calendar body |
| Contact | Norma Laboy, 219-764-5741; nlaboy@portage-in.com | Portage Parks calendar |
| Organizer | Portage Event Partnership with City of Portage | GreatNews.Life; parks calendar |
Portage Parks’ calendar lists the event at Imagination Glen West for Oct. 10 from 5 to 9 p.m. and names Portage Event Partnership as the presenter. The same listing’s body text once says “Saturday, October 11, 2026,” while the structured date field and GreatNews.Life both place the night on Saturday, Oct. 10. Region N3 is printing the Oct. 10 date shared by the wire and the calendar’s date field; the parks body line looks like a one-day typo on the public page.
GreatNews.Life quoted Andrea Riley of the Portage Event Partnership saying Portage lacked a signature citywide event compared with nearby festivals, and that organizers wanted clean, safe family fun. Norma Laboy, the city’s public relations specialist, told the outlet the night helps sponsors and vendors reach residents and builds city partnerships.
Barath wrote that the trail mixed decorations and carved pumpkins, that trunk-or-treat cars lined the entrance area, and that seniors had a dedicated hour while teens also attended in costume. Riley said elementary schools have taken part and that grandparents come to see student pumpkin art. The story framed the night as free entertainment for families.
Imagination Glen is Portage’s largest city park at about 276 acres, per the parks facility page, with playgrounds, shelters, trails, and sports fields on McCool Road. Light Up the Gourds uses that park as its Halloween trail site rather than Founders Square, where Portage has staged other fall events.
For more on Portage parks and Event Partnership contacts, the parks calendar points to Norma Laboy at the phone and email above and to portagein.gov.
Photo credit
¹ Hero: Various jack-o-lanterns at Rennie Park, Toronto, 2025 — photo by Chicken4War, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Illustrative of an illuminated pumpkin display; not from Portage’s Oct. 10, 2026 event. Resized for web; this copy is shared under the same license.
² Imagination Glen Park sign — Portage Parks / City of Portage facility gallery (ImageRepository document 3968).
³ Portage Lakefront Pavilion — photo by Chris Light, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Portage public-park landmark; not the Imagination Glen trail. Resized for web; this copy is shared under the same license.
