Photograph by Kristy Hewitt
Pipe Dreams: From left, Alexandra Lanoie, Bobby Wright, Adrian Barciga and Desire Munoz show off flutes from around the world that will available at the International Craft Faire this weekend.
International Crafts Faire benefits its producers and consumers alike
Faire has variety of handmade products made by fairly paid international artisans
By Kate Carter
The faire is coming to Willow Glen this weekend, and fair trade and cultural exchange are the highlights. The International Crafts Faire is an annual event in its 12th year at the Lincoln Glen Mennonite Church on Booksin Avenue. Booths featuring a variety of handmade items from jewelry to toys to musical instruments and artistic pieces will be complemented by concessions and live musical and dance entertainment.
All of the crafts are made by artisans in 30 countries around the world, but what makes this faire special is that all of the profits from the event are returned to those same artisans.
"The whole idea is to maximize profit for the artisans," says Ann Burris, chairwoman of the leadership committee for this year's faire.
"The funds go back to fund the program and give the craftsperson fair market value," says Evelyn Heinrich, co-founder of the crafts faire. "As a result, there are whole villages that have changed."
While providing a market for skilled craftsmen and women to sell their wares, the faire also gives locals the opportunity to discover other cultures and to take a piece of those cultures home.
"It's like taking a mini-trip around the world," says Joanne Rafferty, the committee's publicity chairwoman.
The Willow Glen faire is only one of many festivals and year-round stores in North America affiliated with the Mennonite Central Committee's nonprofit alternative trading organization called Ten Thousand Villages. The organization began over 50 years ago and is based in Akron, Pa.
Larry Guengerich, spokesman for Ten Thousand Villages, says that the Willow Glen faire "is one of the largest of these faires. They have turned the event into a holiday shopping tradition."
Fair Trade Federation executive director Cheryl Musch says that fair trade is an alternative way of doing business that emphasizes getting money back to producers and establishing long-term relationships with those producers. She says that this is possible for alternative trading organizations because there are no stockholders who have to be paid, and thus more money goes to producers. She says that about half the Fair Trade Federation's member organizations are for-profit and half are nonprofit.
Ten Thousand Villages is a member of the Fair Trade Federation in the United States and International Federation for Alternative Trade in Europe, that set and regulate fair trading standards.
"Ten Thousand Villages is the oldest and largest fair trader in North America," says Fair Trade Federation executive director Cheryl Musch. "It is sort of the granddaddy here."
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Ring Leader: Joanne Rafferty, publicity chairwoman for the International Gift Faire, has been collecting items like her earrings since the faire started in Willow Glen 12 years ago.
Ten Thousand Villages serves as a vehicle for craftspeople in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America to sell their products in developed countries, such as the United States and Canada and receive a fair and livable income to pay for food, education, health care, and housing.
Employees and volunteers from Ten Thousand Villages identify artisans through the relief and development arm of the Mennonite Central Committee, Guengerich says. They work with those artisans to place an order for items, such as baskets or scarves, at a fair price. The nonprofit pays the craftspeople half of that amount up front, to cover the costs of raw materials, and then the rest when the products are shipped, he says.
The organization then receives the items and ships them to the 115 shops and myriad faires in the United States that sell Ten Thousand Villages products.
Gift festivals in the United States brought in $835,906 last year.
Faire co-founders Evelyn Heinrich and Marcella Claassen first got the idea to hold an event in Willow Glen after learning about Ten Thousand Villages, then called Self Help, stores and selling items on a smaller scale. They couldn't commit to running a full-time store, but they thought that it would be possible to expand their efforts into a two-day faire.
Ten Thousand Villages was supportive, so they got some family and friends together and got their church to donate space. Twelve years ago they held their first faire, and it's been growing ever since.
The crafts faire committee starts planning for the October event in May, says Schroeder, "although it's running through our heads all year round anyway." This year their committee is made up of five women, and committee members say that, although it's not too difficult to run the event after 10 years experience, it would be easier with more committee members. They've had up to 10 people on the committee in the past.
Burris says that they have about 145 volunteers to help with the hard work of preparing for, running and cleaning up after the faire. Any items they don't sell are returned to the Ten Thousand Villages warehouse in Akron.
"We always keep hoping that we won't have to send any back," says Frances Schroeder, the committee's church liaison.
The committee keeps only enough money to put on the faire for the next year.
"We don't make any money off it," Schroeder says.
The program for selling crafts grew out of the Mennonite Central Committee's relief work they began doing in developing countries back in the 1920s, says Heinrich.
"They would go to these various places where people were really in need and give them aid," she says.
Flute Groups: This flute was made by hand in Bolivia, where women work in groups out of one member's home.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
While there, relief workers found that the people needed longer-term help to become self-sufficient. Eventually the Mennonite Central Committee established Self Help to provide a way for skilled craftspeople to sell their products in the United States and Canada, and receive fair wages for their efforts.
The program now supports more than 60,000 people in 30 developing countries.
Several of the faire's committee members and volunteers have visited villages that are supported by the faire. Volunteer Rupa Rahman, president of the Bay Area Bangladesh Association, was born in Bangladesh and now lives in the Bay Area. She discovered the craft faire walking down Booksin Avenue during the fair some years ago and found that they were selling some products from Bangladesh. She became a volunteer for the faire, and offered to visit one the of the villages they support on one of her trips back to visit her family.
"I wanted to find out how they are doing and what they are doing," she says.
In 1997 she spent a day in the village of Sayedpur, about 300 miles from the capital, Dhaka. She watched women make paper using natural products, and she learned that their efforts help to feed their children and send them to school.
"Those women, who didn't have much education, use their hands to make money," she says. She says they are able to make about 400 taka, or about $20, a month. Because the children can go to school, "they look forward to professional jobs. It might help the next generation."
Rahman says that the women are proud of the work they do and the independence that it gives them. Many of the women are single mothers and they need the money they can make through Ten Thousand Villages and the craft faire to make a better life for their families. She plans to go back next year to visit the women again.
"I hope I will go back again and see how much it has improved," she says.
Musch also says that fair trade is growing. Even Starbucks announced on Oct. 4, that it will begin carrying a line of fair trade coffee, she says. "It is the largest business to say yes to fair trade," she says.
She says that fair trade is good for producers, businesses and consumers because they all benefit from providing a fair exchange for good quality handmade products.
"It's a feel-good situation all the way down the line," she says. "Other businesses are going to have to take it seriously as consumer pressure increases." She says that people want to have the option of buying products that they know weren't produced in sweatshops and by people being exploited by companies who want to maximize their profits.
Dream Weaver: Maria Santiago of Nebaj, Guatemala, creates colorful cloth on a simple backstrap loom. Hand-woven clothing, bags and gifts from Guatemala and gifts from other countries are available at the International Gift Faire.
Photograph by Norma Voth
The craft faire, though held at the Mennonite church and affiliated with the Mennonite Central Committee, isn't specifically religious in nature. Most of the committee members aren't Mennonite themselves.
"It's an ecumenical effort," says Burris. "Churches seem to be the easiest place to get volunteers."
While the volunteers and committee members work to provide a better life for people in other countries, they also bring a little piece of those countries to Willow Glen.
"We can appreciate their culture by seeing what they make and help by buying what they make," Rafferty says.
"It is kind of an exchange of cultures. Through crafts, you can see the other culture. You can know exactly the daily activities. It tells the story of their culture," Rahman says.
"It's fascinating to see the different styles of Christmas decorations," says Rafferty. "You see such different expressions when you see a collection from all over the world."
"The shopping is fun," says Burris. "My house is kind of a miniature Ten Thousand Villages store."
But you buy more than just a quality handmade product, they say.
"We call it, 'the gift that gives twice'--you buy a gift for a friend and you give a person in a developing country hope," Heinrich says.
"I can really feel like what I'm doing is making a difference for someone," Burris says.
The International Craft Faire is at Lincoln Glen Church Fellowship Hall, 2700 Booksin Avenue, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Oct. 13, and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Oct. 14. For more information, visit www.internationalgiftfaire.com.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
