20th GLOBAL HOLIDAY FAIRE COMING!

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.


And don't forget to 'like" the Faire on Facebook: www.facebook.com/GlobalHolidayFaire