A socially distanced business crawl happens on Hilltop this weekend
In socially distanced style, the Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma will host a small business crawl this weekend to compensate for the loss of the annual street fair due to COVID-19.
The crawl setup allows customers to freely visit 16 participating businesses and two vendor areas throughout the day.
Your first stop should be the office of the Hilltop Action Coalition at 1116 Earnest S. Brazil St., where you can retrieve your “passport” for the weekend. Each business you visit will stamp your card, which doubles as a raffle entry for one of dozens of prizes donated by participating businesses.
“We knew that it was going to be important — now so maybe more than ever — to provide the opportunity for not just businesses but the community to be ‘together’ in some capacity — and I say that in air quotes,” said Alyssa Torrez, the lead organizer and a community engagement specialist with the Tacoma Housing Authority.
To develop the crawl, which came together in under two months, she joined forces with Brendan Nelson of the Hilltop Action Coalition and The Community Market, a women-led organization that plans pop-up markets to promote local businesses owned by people of color.
Businesses with storefronts along and around the Martin Luther King Jr. corridor from Earnest S. Brazil Street to People’s Park on 10th are participating. They include Hilltop icons Bob’s Bar-B-Q Pit, Fish House Cafe, Hill-Top Loan Pawn Shop and Sam and Terry’s Barbershop, to newer outfits such as Red Elm Cafe, Manifesto Coffee and The Eleven Eleven.
There will be two vendor areas for micro-businesses to share their craft, whether that be Filipino food from Jan Parker Cookery, barbecue sauce from SGT Hart’s, personal care products from Ohana Health or FUKU Activism Apparel. Each area will count for one stamp on your passport card.
Located in two parking lots owned by THA (next to the THA building at 902 S. L St. and behind Fab-5 at 1120 S. 11th), booths will be arranged in the same COVID-appropriate style that farmers markets have perfected this summer.
Those who collect all 20 stamps can vote for the People’s Choice Award, which, along with the raffle winners, will be announced at the Hilltop Action Coalition’s virtual September meeting.
Most neighborhood businesses were eager to participate, said Torrez, noting exceptions such as 2nd Cycle, a nonprofit that has been slammed throughout the pandemic.
The diversity of businesses involved in the crawl is “indicative of the changes Hilltop has been going through over the last several years,” she added. “We are making sure that the community as a whole knows who’s there and that we’re kind of in this change together.”
For a full list of participating businesses and vendors, visit activatehilltop.org.
HILLTOP BUSINESS CRAWL
What: A socially distanced way to support local Hilltop businesses, plus BIPOC-owned small businesses
Where: Start at Hilltop Action Coalition, 1116 Earnest S. Brazil St., Tacoma (masks, hand sanitizer and water available)
When: Aug. 22-23, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 5:00 AM.