Hilltop Street Fair won’t happen this year. Block party is scheduled to take its place
The Hilltop Street Fair, which usually occurs in Tacoma towards the end of summer, might not be happening this year, but local groups are planning a similar event Saturday.
The Hilltop Action Coalition, Hilltop Business Association and Tacoma Housing Authority are hosting a block party on Aug. 21 at 10 a.m. Martin Luther King Jr. Way, from South 9th Street to South 14th Street, will be closed to traffic.
Local businesses participating in the block party include Love By The Slice, Peterson Bros. 1111 and Bob’s Bar-B-Q Pit. Other businesses include Adorned Abode, Manieressential and Jade & Co Succulent Boutique, LLC. A list of participating vendors can be found online.
Party-goers can fill out a passport when they purchase or interact with a booth at the event, said Kristine Coman, program manager for the Hilltop Action Coalition. After they visit five or more booths, their passport can be placed into a raffle.
“We just wanted the community to realize how important it was to support these local businesses,” Coman said. “These are mom-and-pop places, and some of them are legacy businesses that have been here for decades.”
Coman said there will be a bike and skateboard obstacle course as well as a kid zone that offers school supplies and free books. There also will be a community health zone for people looking to get a COVID-19 vaccination, among other things.
People can expect to see pop-up markets for local businesses that do not have a brick-and-mortar space, Coman said. The block party will offer a safe place for community members to reconnect after a long time of being secluded, she said.
The block party also will bring awareness to small businesses that have been affected by the pandemic, Alicia Mathurin said. Mathurin and Krista Perez co-founded The Community Market in Tacoma, which ensures communities of color have a space to showcase their business at local events.
“Hilltop is a BIPOC community, and it’s hard to see that now just because of the gentrification, so it’ll be good to see that on this day,” Mathurin said.
Perez said they reached out to their list of over 100 vendors of color for the block party. Those vendors include Seven Son’s Kitchen, Little Miss Sweets NYC and Jan Parker Cookery.
“There’s unique barriers that BIPOC businesses face, and most markets don’t care to address that or break those barriers down,” Perez said. “That’s all that we do.”
Access to capital is one of the barriers people of color face when trying to start a business, Mathurin said, including “red tape” when trying to get business loans from banks.
“Historically, because of oppression, we’re not starting on an even point. We’re starting in the hole,” Mathurin said.
The Hilltop Street Fair usually draws a crowd of about 20,000 people, said Jennifer English, vice president of Hilltop Business Association. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the block party will be smaller.
“It’s very possible this is the last time we’ll be able to shut the street down before the light rail turns on and starts,” English said. “We just want to give the community an opportunity to… have a good day.”
Sound Transit’s Hilltop Tacoma Link Extension project “doubles the length” of the Tacoma Link light rail and is currently under construction. The project is expected to finish by 2022.
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
