Certainly, I am delighted to explain the concept of an alternative gift fair.
The idea is to de-emphasize material goods and emphasize how we can help others. An alternative gift may be a donation to a non-profit organization in honor of a friend or family member or in memory of someone. Alternative gifts come from the heart and reflect the values, life and interests of the recipient.
"Alternative Gift Fairs can come in many shapes and sizes, from a larger fair that fills an entire hall and involves dozens of volunteers to a single table staffed by a single volunteer. Any size fair can do a wonderful job of drawing community together around common values and alternatives to a commercial culture." - New American Dream
Visit:
www.newamericandream.org
You can get a "shopping list".
Some ideas: a US$15 donation will buy a leash for a Seeing Eye dog in training to help a blind person.
"shopping list." You scan the list, seeing gifts of garden plots for urban families in the United States, microenterprise loans to Haitian families, solar cookers for refugees in Kenya, solar water systems for hurricane victims in Honduras, and cargo bicycles for South Africans. The alternative gifts range from $5 to $100 and all are tax deductible. There may also be kid's alternative gifts ranging in price from US$1 -$5.00.
"Volunteers have decked the place out in holiday decorations and two musicians are playing a guitar and banjo on the other side of the room. The room is ringed with tables, one for each group on your shopping list. Each table contains information on the charity, its mission and its projects. Local charities have sent representatives to staff their tables, while tables for the international charities are staffed by a volunteer who has read up on the organization and can describe their work to the several dozen 'shoppers' milling about the room and roaming from table to table. In the center of the room are several shoppers sipping hot apple cider and eating baked goods. Upon closer look, you see a table in the behind them where a man is selling hot drinks and baked goods to help the group cover the cost of putting on the fair. There are three other tables at the front of the room. At the first, three cashiers are collecting shopping lists and money from the shoppers and giving them receipts and attractive gift cards. Many of these shoppers are then making their way over to a second table, staffed by calligraphers. You lean over one shopper's shoulder and see that the inside of her card now says "Dear Mom, A bike helmet has been given to an at-risk youth in Montgomery County. Love, Stephanie." The final table contains a wealth of information on other ways to celebrate meaningful holidays - a "top ten list" of homemade gift ideas, a "gift of time" certificate and sample copies of Bill McKibben's Hundred Dollar Holiday and the Center for a New American Dream's "Simplify the Holidays" brochure." - from New American Dream website.
Gifts may be
- Fair Trade,
-handmade,
-things like encouraging travel with non-profits rather than corporations,
-a basket of needed items for a local animal shelter,
-a vegetarian meal,
-an experience rather than a thing
- perhaps helping sort food at a food pantry,
-helping serve food to needy people,
-collecting winter coats in excellent condition and donating them to a non-profit or the local police station (my local police collect these things at this time of year),
-helping to make "ugly" sleeping bags out of recovered textiles for homeless people (and of course, it's cleaned before it's delivered),
-visiting elderly people who've outlived their families or who have no one close by to visit them and listening to their stories,
-playing with kids in an orphanage,
-sending care packages to troops stationed abroad,
-a back rub for one's parent,
-a gift of Dancing Deer Baking Company's cookies (they employ homeless people),
-US$5 for a compact fluorescent lightbulb
-volunteer time reading to kids without books
-supporting single women with children or battered women with donations of toiletries, career clothing, linens, etc
-support local artisans/local farms
-$10 Two mosquito nets to protect HIV-infected children from Malaria
$25 Two meals per day for an orphan for a month
$50 Two beds for orphans sleeping on the floor in overcrowded households
All Paws Rescue
$25 Food and shelter supplies
$50 Shelter maintenance costs
$100 Veterinary treatments, such as spay/neuter, vaccinations
$10 Recipe cards teaching consumers about the nutritional benefits of locally grown food
$20 Keeps market fees low for participating farmers, helping their family farms survive
$45 Sponsor your favorite farmers’ market for half an hour
$7 Ship one wheelchair
$28 Manufacture one wheelchair
$44 Manufacture, ship and distribute one wheelchair
The Healing Exchange Brain Trust
$10 Outreach packet to a clinic or support group
$35 A month of gifts & cards for a brain tumor patient
$50 A month of gifts & cards for 2 brain tumor patients
Heifer International
$10 Tree Seedlings
$30 Honeybees
$50 Share a knitting basket (2 llamas & 2 sheep)
Leap Self-Defense, Inc.
$10 Girls LEAP logo water bottles or T-Shirts
$50 One day of programming for a mother & daughter or one kick shield
$100 Sponsor a girl to take the leap program
Mass Bike
$10 Pays for 100 “Go By Bike” commuter information pamphlets
$25 Buys bicycle maps to help 5 people get around by bike (five less cars!)
$100 Provides a day of bicycle skills training by a certified instructor, for an entire class
The Network/La Red
$10 Prints 300 palm cards providing information and resources to GLBT survivors of domestic violence
$25 Provides groceries for a GLBT survivor of domestic violence in an emergency safehome
$50 Buys a share in A Night of Safety - emergency shelter program
Prison Book Program
$7 Supplies a dictionary to a person in prison
$25 Supplies a G.E.D. prep book for a person in prison
$49 Supplies 7 prisoners with a dictionary
Second World
$10 Dedicate a brick for the building of performance space for a Tibetan refugee program
$25 Provide 65 brochures to educate consumers about child labor, slave labor and fair trade
$40 One month of emergency training and child care for an abandoned woman and her children
Spare Change News
$10 Prints 100 issues of Spare Change News
$30 Supports the Writers' Fund for low-income writers and artists
$50 Brings low-income people into the community to discuss homeless issues through the Speakers Bureau
Other ideas include supporting an environmental organization,Save Darfur (Sudan), Habitat for Humanity, Interfaith Hospitality Network (provide emergency housing for homeless families for a week - typically in a church, synagogue, mosque etc;
The ideas are only limited by one's imagination.
Refreshments may be donated by a local supermarket and entertainment by local musicians, etc.
Volunteers decorate.
Crossroads International in Brookline, Massachusetts and Ten Thousand Villages sell Fair trade items including toys, games, musical instruments, textiles, handmade paper, fair trade coffee/tea.
Visit
Kulanu: All of Us and
Kulanu Boutique Home Page to help lost Jewish communties in India, Europe, North Africa, USA, South America, Ethiopia, Southern Africa and Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda.
Any other ideas out there?
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