NILES — Eight Cedar Lane Alternative High School students ensured the Hunter Ice Festival could live up to its namesake Wednesday at the Niles Entrepreneurial and Culinary Incubator.

From the second-floor commercial kitchen of the incubator, 219 N. Fourth St., students scooped ice cream for the festival. They placed each scoop into plastic cups to be distributed from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at a booth on the south 100 block of Main Street in Niles.

The Hunter Ice Festival was named after the Hunter Brothers Ice and Cream Company, which made ice cream at the turn of the 20th century and sold ice blocks cut from Barron Lake to people and businesses in need to refrigerants.

The festival, now in its 16th year, celebrates the sibling-owned company by bringing in carvers across the country to cut ice into sculptures and by giving free ice cream made specifically for the three-day event by Hudsonville Ice Cream in Holland, Michigan.

The Niles students did their part for the ice festival through Reaching for the Reins, an extension program through Cedar Lane Alternative High School that students can take. If their attendance and grades hit a certain level by the end of the year, they can receive school credit for the program.

More importantly, the program emphasizes service, community pride, communication and personal growth, said students Halie Clark, 17, Morgan Morrow, 16, and program director Angelecque Thornton.

The school-year-long program centers on service at Evergreen Valley Farm, 2240 Walton Road, Niles. Students learn how to care for and ride a horse. Then, they teach younger Niles students those same lessons.

This work is interspersed with service and outreach projects that bring Reaching for the Reins students into the community, talking to and helping people.

Late last year, for example, Reaching for the Reins created a “Winter Wonderland” for Ballard Elementary School students. Different classrooms were decorated with different winter themes, each offering a different activity.

“One of the things I’m happy to do is go bring that program into the community they’re in and have them meet the people in there,” Thornton said.

Morrow enjoyed the program so much she is now in her second year of it. She was inspired to join by her older sister. When she was in the program, she saw a marked improvement in her anxiety levels.

Morrow has, too, thanks to Reaching for the Reins’ community work and Cedar Lane’s programming in general.

“Before joining Reaching for the Reins, I wouldn’t have been able to talk to you or teachers or other students, but now I can,” she said. “Reaching for the Reins has helped me open up to people and helped me with my communication skills.”

Clark has had a similar experience this school year.

She said the program has helped her “get out of her skin” when she and her peers take on service projects. It has boosted her confidence.

Morrow and Clark said the program allowed them to grow close with the other students in the program. Beside them, peers plopped ice cream into cups and tossed jokes back and forth while listening to pop hits of the 2010s.

While Reaching for the Reins will not distribute the ice cream it prepared, Thornton said other volunteer opportunities are available at the Hunter Ice Festival. Even connecting with community members at the event could be meaningful, she said.

Clark plans to go to the weekend festival with her family.

“I really like the town coming together and everyone coming together for one thing that a lot of people worked so hard to put together,” she said.