The town of Mount Pleasant held its 10th annual Mount Pleasant Day Street Fair on Sunday afternoon, featuring local businesses and charities, music by local band Heard Immunity, food trucks, mini golf, bouncy houses, and more.

 The fair was located on Elwood Ave in Hawthorne, between Cross and Commerce Street. The fair was open from 1-6 PM, and was sponsored by the Town of Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce, with the support of the Hawthorne, Thornwood, and Valhalla Fire Departments. 

Hawthorne Fire Department Captain Carlo Valente spoke about the fire department’s role in the community. 

“What we do is we reach out to a lot of local neighbors that we have, we encourage them to join,” he said. “It’s a volunteer program. Training is free through the county, and with that training, it opens the door to the different aspects in the fire department and your roles that you can do here.

“Its a great community outreach as well, we do a lot of fire prevention with the local schools here,” Valente continued. “We do a lot of parades, we do a lot of recruiting as well, we’re here on Mount Pleasant Day just to get our name out, and a lot of people they don’t know. I didn’t know when I moved up here that the [fire] department was volunteer. The more volunteers we have, the easier it is to respond to calls.”

Dozens of vendors lined the street on both sides, many selling products but some offering free products and activities. One business, Aliberti & Sons Landscaping, promoted their business in a fun way, by offering a gardening activity with soil and supplies provided by the landscaping company.

Maria Aliberti, wife of business owner Carmine Aliberti, shared information about the business and their activity for the kids. 

“We’re doing a planting activity for kids, where they’re growing their own flower with sunflower seeds and dirt and decorating their cup,” she said. “We are a landscaping business, so we provide a variety of services including yard maintenance, planting, and gardening.” 

Pleasantville-based Arc Stages, a nonprofit theater organization, gave away shopping bags and sunglasses, as well as scratch-off masks for the kids. 

“We’ve been to the street fair before,” said Executive Artistic Director Adam Cohen. “Right now we’re doing the street fair tour. We were at New Castle Day yesterday, we’ll be at Pleasantville Block Party next week.” 

Cohen said Arc Stages has three components. “We have an educational stage, which has programs and classes for all ages from literally 10 months to adults. Our community stage is our program where anyone can come and audition and be in a show, anyone in the community. Our next stage is our professional company which hires union actors to do shows, and we have all three under one roof, that is basically Arc Stages.”

Midway through the festivities, the street fair welcomed a few guests for speeches, including Westchester County Legislator Margaret Cunzio, who represents the Town of Mount Pleasant, and U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler. 

“I want to congratulate the Mount Pleasant Chamber of Commerce for all the great work that is done putting this event together,” Lawler said. “I think this is the third or fourth time I’ve been here for this event over the last few years, and it is getting better and bigger every year.”