You read that headline right! This year is the 20th Annual Ecumenical
Global Holiday Faire. It is amazing that
we have been doing this for more than half my life. We hope to make this the best Faire ever, so
we need everyone's help in making it better than ever. The Faire takes place on Saturday, December
2, from 9-3. We will be raising money
for 16 local and global non-profit organizations. We will have great gift items from around the
world for sale benefiting organizations such as SERRV, Friends of Loma Vista
Farm, Concern America and Pal Craftaid.
We are excited by the return of Bead for Life this year. It has always been a popular table with their
hand-made beaded jewelry, so this year they are "back by popular demand." We will continue to feature Alternative
Giving with Heifer International and Arbor Day Foundation. We are happy to include Doctors without
Borders in the Faire this year. Their
work after the natural disasters our planet has recently faced is amazing and
we are looking forward to raising money for their efforts. And as always, homemade lunch will be for
sale and choirs and musicians will be performing all day long to add to the
festive atmosphere.
There is much that you can do to help make our 20th
Faire even better than last year when we raised over $13,500! If you can volunteer at a table at the Faire
(or help set up the night before starting at 6pm), please let Helen Mezzera
know. We are accepting donations of
crafts, gift baskets, baked goods, and new, never opened "re-gifted"
items.
A major part of making the Faire a success is
spreading the word. The fliers - both
the large (great for posting) and the small (great to hand out to friends,
family, neighbors and coworkers) are already available in church and have gone
out on email. Try to think of new ways
to help spread the word. We gave out 100
fliers at Unity Day. We have an ad in
the Grapevine for two months. We will do
an ad in the Times-Herald in addition to getting a big article in the
paper. We will do an ad on
craigslist. We will be attending the
Vallejo Farmers Market and Art Walk to pass out fliers. We are using Facebook to help get the word
out. If you have an idea of a location
or event to hand out fliers, go for it! Our
budget is limited, but if you can think of free places we can advertise, let me
know. As successful as we were last year
(2nd most money raised in 19 years), we still had items for sale at the end of
the day. The only way to make more money
for the 16 non-profits is to get more shoppers in the door.
In the upcoming weeks, look forward to a series of
announcements with all the information you will need about our biggest Mission
Action event of the year.
