Streets Packed for Tisbury Street Fair

The smell of cotton candy floated over the crowd of the Tisbury Street Fair as kids begged for $5 to dunk a Martha's Vineyard hockey player.

"I volunteered to go into the dunk tank," Vineyard hockey player Kyp Cooperrider said. "I don't know what I was thinking."

People gathered around the dunk tank hosted by the Vineyard Hockey Booster Club and waited  to see someone hit the ice cold water.

"This is the first time we  had the dunk tank," Vineyard Hockey Booster Club president Meredith Goldthwait said. "It's been a lot of fun so far."

Proceeds from the dunk tank will help fund two scholarships and expenses for the team.

"We're hoping to raise as much as we can," Goldthwait said.

Another attention grabber was the 24 foot high climbing wall that casted a prominent shadow over part of the fair. 

"It's long," climbing wall attendant Taylor Rassmussen said. "But very fun." 

The wall offered multiple levels of climbing, from easy to advanced. And the reward was the view from the top. 

"It's 24 feet up so you'd be able to see all the way down to the Steamship [Authority] and back," Rassmussen said.

Nearby, Marta Usheva sifted through jewelery at Imagine, a mind, body and spirit gift store. 

"This is my first time to the Street Fair," Usheva said. "There's a nice spirit going around."

"I would definitely come back," said Usheva.

Annie Finnerty has attended the Tisbury Street Fair for a number of years.

"This is a great opportunity to get really good food," Finnerty said. "And you get to do a full day of shopping done in a couple of hours."

It could be hard to decide what to do, from the face painting to the climbing wall, but for Mara Sullivan and her two kids, the answer was simple.

It was the food.

"We came to eat," Mara said with a smile. "It's a great way to spend time with the family, and you can't go wrong with the Firemen's burgers."