The Dec. 6 event, presented by the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, San Jose Peace Center and several other local peace and justice organizations, will offer unique gift items, from local art to handicrafts from Bangladesh.

Twenty-five tables will be set up at the Willow Glen United Methodist Church on Minnesota Avenue for the peace fair. Each table, manned by representatives from different peace organizations, will boast different kinds of art and will include music CDs and clothing. Gifts will be priced starting around $5 to about $50.

Willow Glen resident and church member Joyce Akers is the driving force that brought the gift fair to the neighborhood.

She is a longtime peace advocate who started a UNICEF store in her garage, which was later moved to Lincoln Avenue in 1975. Now she is active with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

She views the gift fair as an alternative way to shop. Instead of driving to a nearby department store, residents can buy goods while benefiting local nonprofits and artists abroad.

Akers believes in the mission of the Holiday Peace Fair so much that she has spent hours walking the streets of Willow Glen, passing out fliers and talking to Lincoln Avenue business owners to engage support. She has accrued nearly five miles walking around the community to garner support for the event.

"I've been surprised with the merchants' wonderful response," Akers says.

The event serves as a fundraiser for all the participating peace organizations. Proceeds from the $1 entrance fee donation will be split between Rescuing Global Neighbors, an organization that provides humanitarian assistance to individuals in crisis situations in the territories of the Commonwealth of Independent States and Next Door, a nonprofit agency dedicated to providing proactive and progressive solutions to domestic violence.

At the league table, items from Sales Exchange for Refuge Rehabilitation Vocation, commonly known as SERRV International—a nonprofit organization working to alleviate poverty through cooperative trade—will also be on sale.

Akers, 75, has supported the league for years, because it consigns goods from artists in poor countries, pays the artists half the price of the items on the spot and then, after the items are sold at places like the Holiday Peace Fair, sees that the artists recover the full profit from the sales.

Akers will keep any items that are left over from the gift fair and try to sell them throughout the year to further assist the artists residing in poverty-stricken countries.

The Holiday Peace Fair event coordinator, Joan Goddard, says that entertainment will also be provided throughout the day, including Middle Eastern dance by the League of Arab Women; San Jose Peace Chorale; Sufi Dance of Universal Peace by the Abwoon Study Circle; and Andean music by Teocalli Amauta.

The 21^st annual Holiday Peace Fair will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Dec. 6 at Willow Glen United Methodist Church, 1420 Newport Avenue (at Minnesota Avenue). Children are admitted free. There is no charge for games, crafts and face painting for the children. Homemade desserts will also be available.