The Church of the Redeemer’s Craft Bazaar recently returned for its 41st year, drawing a crowd of almost 2,000 visitors and families throughout the day to holiday shop for handmade crafts from over 120 vendors.
In addition to its abundance of family attractions, such as a special visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus along with exciting raffle prizes, the annual fair serves as one of the church’s largest fundraising events of the year. This year’s event was held on Saturday, Nov. 19 at the church, located at located at 8275 Meadowbridge Road in Mechanicsville.
While admission was free, the church requested a $1 donation at the door that was rewarded with a door prize ticket, with this year’s door prizes including Santa Claus cookie jars, Enamel pie plates, mugs and more. Visitors who brought a nonperishable food item for the church’s food bank received an additional door prize ticket.
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According to event co-chairs Terry and Dave Worland, they drew in around $1,700 in door donations alone and filled the church’s shelves in donated canned goods.
“We were packing bags all the way down the hall,” Dave said, adding that they could fill multiple shopping carts to the brim with the collected canned goods.
“This is the fundraiser that keeps the lights on that allows all of the other fundraisers to all the other ministries do their work and benefit the community,” Terry said.
Dave and Terry, who have helped to organize the event for the past five years, said the Craft Bazaar continues to grow in size and prominence as they continue to draw in more vendors every year, with some even traveling from out-of-state.
“It always draws a big crowd,” Dave said. “I think a lot of the community looks forward to it every year. We see a lot of the same people and a lot of new people come in every year.”
One of the features of the annual fair is the requirement that all items sold by vendors are handmade, offering one-of-a-kind holiday gifts at reasonable prices.
It’s a requirement the vendors really appreciate because they’re not competing with large direct sales companies, Terry said, adding that they “do a lot of work to keep the vendors happy.”
Bazaar volunteers assist vendors with unloading and loading their items, placing them on carts, and wheeling them to their assigned spaces. The church’s youth volunteers even collect lunch orders from the vendors and place them on their behalf to the church’s kitchen, which serves breakfast and lunch to visitors throughout the event.
“We try to make it easy for the vendors, because if we don’t have crafters, we don’t have a craft fair,” Dave said.
This year’s large assortment of handcrafted items included hand-sewn items, such as towels and bags, along with jewelry, crocheted items, pottery, local honey, jellies, soaps, candles and more.
The Bazaar additionally featured a Santa Shop with an abundance of small, inexpensive gift items that were primarily donated by church members. With the help of a few of Santa’s elves, children shopped around for gifts for their family while parents waited outside.
In addition, the Bazaar featured its annual raffle with impressive prizes such as the Oculus Quest 2 VR, gift card trees worth over $300, a TV and more. In previous years, they have featured items such as a Nintendo Switch, the newest Play Station and even a drone.
“It takes a lot of organizing but the day of the Bazaar, it’s almost like it runs itself,” Dave said. “It takes a lot of hard work to get to that point, but when you get there, you see all the people enjoying themselves and getting their Christmas shopping done, and it’s just fun to sit back and watch.”
He added that it takes a “huge amount of volunteers,” with the church’s staff, members, youth, Boy Scout troops, American Heritage troops, and even local schools pitching in to bring the annual fair to life. Many parishioners donate items for the Santa Shop, bake sale, refreshment spread and raffles.
“It’s a good opportunity for everyone at church to be involved in this, and we’re very thankful because Redeemer is a very active parish,” Terry said.
Terry and Dave said they always enjoy helping to organize the annual event, as it helps them stay connected with the community and the parish and offers the chance for their own families to join in the day’s festivities.
Dave said he enjoyed watching his granddaughters, Lilly and Cora Wilcox, sit on Santa’s lap and share what they wanted for Christmas.
“We’re surrounded by some really good people,” he added. “We’ve got a terrific committee that puts this on, and the staff is very helpful. It’s just kind of one of those things of if you surround yourself with good people, a lot of good things tend to happen.”
They said they have already drawn in a number of vendor applications for next year’s Craft Bazaar and predict the return of around 70% of this year’s vendors.
Open registration for the 2023 Craft Bazaar begins Feb. 1, 2023. To submit a vendor application or for more information on the annual event, visit https://www.churchredeemer.org/craft.
