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Levi Grishaber, Emma Grishaber and Jake Matthews pose for a photo with South Bend Cubs mascot Stu D. Baker during Sunday's Downtown Market Crawl. (Maxwell Harden | Leader Publications)

NILES — Downtown Niles was the place to be Sunday afternoon as businesses hosted the inaugural Downtown Market Crawl.

From noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, 12 businesses throughout downtown hosted 30 vendors in their locations while guests “crawled” through downtown to explore and experience all it had to offer.

According to event organizer Kristin Bivens, the event was a success.

“There was a lot of traffic and a lot of people walking about,” she said. “It looked pretty busy and I’ve heard from a lot of vendors that said they were happy with the turnout and had a fun afternoon.”

Following the success of last year’s Homegrown Market, Bivens decided to give the market crawl a try in downtown Niles after seeing them be successful in other communities.

“I was like, why can’t we do this in Niles,” she said. “I want to make sure downtown businesses are benefiting from these events. This seemed like a good way to not only support local but to also support local and get them into our businesses.”

Biivens believes the Market Crawl will be the first of many in downtown Niles.

“I don’t know if it would be a twice a year thing or just once a year,” she said. “The vendors have said they would like to see it again and attendees said the same thing. “I’m hoping we get good feedback from the businesses that want to do it.”

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