Craft Fair
January 12th, 2007 by Joy
We had a planning meeting with the girls involved in our craft ministry at Grace Church. So many great ideas for this year. One of our big projects is a Craft fair, April 21st. We will be raising money for our missionaries in Mexico, the Donohues. They have a ministry called Cuirim Outreach. The use Celtic Monastic tradition there, focusing the day around work, study and prayer.
Every summer kids from our youth group go down there and help out with whatever they have going on. This past summer they built a childrens cafe. Many of the kids that live there are home all day by themselves while the parents are at work. Sometimes they don’t have food. Cuirim outreach wanted to provide for them in this way by giving them a free meal and a place to come and play. I just got an email from Brian Donohue on their current projects :
This month we are working on finishing the children’s cafe. We are currently serving 40 kids MWF from 11-2. We still need an oven and a frig. I was working with the Mexican importation officials yesterday trying to get permission to cross large quantities of food for the children. We have been receiving free food from Tucson but cannot drive it across with out special permission from the head honcho. We have a place we would like to purchase to start a second cafe. We may put a deposit down as early as next month. We had a small house built for our family just across the border in the Arizona desert. Kirsten is painting this week. We hope to move in at the end of the month. We have almost finalized our summer trips. We have seven groups lined up from June-Aug. We are wrapping up the shoe drive for the season. We received about 3,000 shoes.
We have had a full winter. We miss being in VA this time of year. God has blessed us with lots of visits from our families. The needs here are great and we are privileged to be the ones who get to be “bridges of blessing”.
Please send us pictures of the craft fair.
Brian
The money that we raise will be for these projects, but we also wanted to give the Youth a chance to raise some $$ for their trips too. So we are encouraging them to make things to sell at the fair. We will be having some classes to teach them skills to get them started on their projects. So far we thought we would do a card & beading class and stenciling class.
We are also encouraging them to have their services available for sale (like mowing or babysitting) for the silent auction. We are looking for more ideas of things we can teach them in a night or afternoon that we can complete that night or shortly there after. The boys are the hard ones. Some of them are into making hemp necklaces but, it’s hard to find a boyish craft. Any ideas?
January 12th, 2007 at 9:11 am
What about woodworking? Are there some men in your church handy with with woodworking that could help the boys build birdhouses, small children’s chairs/tables,etc.? Then maybe a clever crafter could paint them!
Or could they sell oil changes? If they are handy with cars (or can be supervised with older folks who know how), they could set up a ‘drive’ outside the church. There’s always car washes…but my experience, you don’t make any money and it’s so messy (and most youth groups don’t really clean the cars anyway, the adults do!).
Or could the ‘man the grill’ and sell food during the craft fair?
Just some thoughts:) If I think of anymore, I’ll send them your way!
January 12th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Megan, Thanks so much for your help! i love the woodworking idea.. it actually came up again today. We are looking for a teacher to help us out with this and other crafts too. I’d like to have a bunch of classes going on for the next few months leading up to the fair.
The oil-change idea is great too. Keep your ideas coming!!
January 12th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
what about digital photography? thats a pretty inexpensive craft as well and they could frame their prints ($0.29/print at walgreens) in a simple clip frame…the pictures don’t have to be anything fancy and could be taken with a basic point and shoot digital camera…but could kelly (notinaday.com) teach them some basics (don’t she and her husband do photography??).
January 12th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
car detailing. they could make appointments and the customer could drop their car off at the boys house for the job. I think the craft fair is a good idea. Maybe next year we could do it in November. This reminds me of the bazzars when I was a kid.
Hemp work is a good idea Joy a lot of guys do that, and leather work too there are kits you can buy and then go to Cotton Gin fabrics, they sell leather scraps cheep and make more. I think the pieces are a buck a piece. They also sell scraps of mostly upholstery fabric, some big some not so big for 50 cents each. Good for pillows and bags. They also have select trims for less as well. And there is kid sitting – for the child who is too big to baby sit yet to young to stay at home alone for a long time. Boys like another guy to stay with them instead of a teen girl. Or animal care, dog walking or sitting.
Well I’m in! Let me know all the details as they happen.
January 16th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Hayley: great idea! Kelly has already told me she wants to donate some photography. Hope you are doing well!
Patty: Thanks so much for your ideas. I love the car detail idea and the animal care. I’ll add them to the list for the boys. I love the Cotton Gin i’ve actually gotten lether there too. Great deals.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:24 am
[...] And last but certainly not least my sweet knitting. This is my bag i take everywhere with me. Pictured here next to the couch where i like to knit, while i’m talking with Brian or he reads to me. I have some knitting rules i follow. I always knit while i’m with people. I’m usually working on such easy projects, that if i’m alone i just can’t bear to sit and knit by myself. I also try to finish each project before starting a new one. This is my current project, another bag for the craft fair. The first bag is peaking out. I’ll post that soon. It turned out super cool. Also, if you have never tried Denise interchangeable knitting needles you MUST! i’m hooked. I’ll never knit with anything else EVER. Just ask, Erin, Deaven or Jen. They know what i mean! [...]