It was a beautiful late summer day, but sunshine won’t get kites up in the air.
“There was no wind, but the kids had a ball,” Holly Alaimo, organizer of the 11th annual Wind Festival in Oak Bluffs, said. “We were looking at the flags, and everything was just limp.”
Still, the kids made kites, and some got them up in the air — if only briefly. “We gave out prizes to the kids, and some adults got prizes for their valiant efforts,” she said.
Holly and her late husband John started the festival when Holly still had her art gallery. The idea was to have kids design their own kites as an art project. They got the idea from talking to others on the Island about their fond memories of kite festivals in the ’60s and ’70s, she said. These days her children and grandchildren help out with the festival.
Unlike Saturday, the first year of the Wind Festival had too much wind, because the Island was being hit by the remnants of a hurricane. “There were TV crews, and we gave them copies of the flier,” she said. The crews announced that the festival would be held the following week. “We had hundreds of people,” Alaimo said. “It really took off.”
Next year the festival will return, and Alaimo is hoping for a happy medium. Good weather, good wind, and the same fun they always have. “We’ve never had a completely disastrous year,” she said. “This is probably the closest with lack of wind, but we got through it, and we’ll do it again next year.”
