The holidays are right around the corner and the Alternative Gift Fair is back! The past 2 years have taught us what is important: using our gifts to bring hope and grace to a fallen world, and being together in fellowship. You can contribute towards both of those goals by participating in this year’s AGF!
This year’s in-person AGF will be held in Buck Hall Saturday, December 3rd, 10 am – 4 pm and Sunday, December 4th 9:30 am – 1 pm. You’ll be able to shop for alternative gifts, purchase fair trade gifts, and participate in Children’s Corner. Fairly traded Equal Exchange coffee, chocolate, and olive oil will be sold and the Presbyterian Women will be hosting a bake sale. Whether AGF has been your family tradition, you are looking for a way to make your holidays less commercial, or you are now ready to come back inside the church building – please join us at the Alternative Gift Fair. (If you prefer online shopping for fair trade items from SERRV, see the link below.) And invite your friends and neighbors!
Alternative Gifts
Gift cards and descriptive inserts for a variety of local, national, and international charities will be available. When you donate, you pick up a card to send to the recipient and the AGF team takes care of passing the donations on to the organizations.
Children’s Corner
The Children’s Corner is a separate section of the AGF where young shoppers (college age and younger) can pick out and wrap gifts for loved ones without adults seeing what they purchased! For younger children, an adult simply makes a list of the family, friends, teachers and others that the child will be shopping for, set a total budget (items will cost between $1 and $12), and then let the child do the rest. Shopping assistants are available to help children who need assistance, so even very young children can participate. All Children’s Corner gifts are high-quality fair trade items from around the world – you won’t be disappointed! We offered children’s shopping appointments the past two years; they are NOT necessary, but click here if you prefer to schedule a specific time to shop.
Fair Trade Shopping
In our first year back in-person, our selection of fair trade items is smaller than in previous years because SERRV is no longer offering a consignment program. However, we do have a selection of gift items including a large order of SERRV’s soup mixes, tea, seasoning blends and other food items. If you want to shop in advance for wider selection of gifts (or if you don’t find what you wanted at AGF), you can shop directly on SERRV’s website. Click the button below for our church’s unique link. Be sure to use the link because we earn 20% from your purchases, which raises funds for the church’s Guatemala Project. You will shop and check out like a regular website, and items will be shipped directly to your door. You can use the SERRV link anytime between now and December 13. Free shipping is available for orders over $50 with the code SESHIP22.
Credit cards, cash and checks will be accepted.
Volunteers
Volunteers are needed to help with all aspects of the Fair; no skills or experience needed! Click here to sign up on Signup Genius. For more information about the Fair or to volunteer, send an email to agf@firstpreshc.org, ask Becky, Kathy or Mandy, or call the church office.