The South Silver Spring Neighborhood Association held its 7th Street Fest on Kennett Street from 12-6 p.m. on Sept. 28. A variety of vendors, performers and promoters came to this year’s festival.
Vendors sold items ranging from children’s’ clothing by Aloetree Kids to homemade dolls by Crochet in Demand. Other businesses promoted their establishments, including Patient First, Fetch! Pet Care of Silver Spring and Symphony of the Potomac.
The Silver Spring Fire Department had a station set up at the end of Kennett Street. The Fire Department’s station focused on safety for children, Life Safety Director of Silver Spring Fire Department Marie Warner said.
The station included free mini firefighter hats, safety games for the children to play and a tour of a utility vehicle. Normally, the tour would be of an ambulance, but there was no ambulance available this year, Warner said.
Warner said the children tend to enjoy touring the vehicles, talking to the firefighters and the safety games, but it is also important to learn something from the experience.
“It desensitizes them if they do need to go in an ambulance because of an accident or something,” Warner said, “they are less afraid of it because they’ve been taught that it’s a situation where they’re going to get help and it’s going to make them feel better.”
Past performers such as Sahara’s Treasure, returned this year to promote the professional Middle Eastern dance troupe that formed in 2006. In the street, one of the troupe members danced with several children and dressed them up in Middle Eastern dance attire.
First timer, Michelle Carrington, owner of Crochet in Demand, set up her station with several homemade dolls, scarves and other crafts. Several children came to the table to look at the character dolls.
Popular among the kids were Carrington’s character toys from the Nintendo series, Mario.
“I’m definitely interested in [coming] again…” Carrington said. “I’m interested in doing craft fairs and was approached for this one, I figured, you know, let me give it a try.”
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