FARMINGTON – The sights and sounds of a holiday filled Mt. Blue High School’s gymnasium Saturday morning as its 12th annual Christmas craft fair began.
The girls’ singing group Syncopations sang carols, crafters sat behind rows of glittering ornaments, fluffy sweaters and pungent soups and dips, and area residents lined up to get flu shots outside the building.
Shannon Smith of Wilton began the craft fair 12 years ago when her children were students at Mt. Blue. “The students needed a fund-raiser,” she said, to pay for Project Graduation, a year-end party that provides an alternative to booze-filled graduation celebrations. Smith, who’d been attending and organizing craft fairs elsewhere for years, thought this would be a way for students to earn money and for community members to have fun.
“We started out with 30 crafters, and now we’re up to 150,” she said of the fair’s success. Each year, Smith said, crafters invited to the fair pay a $20 fee to the students for the privilege of setting up shop in the gym for a day and selling their wares. The students set up the tables and assist crafters throughout the day. Parents of Mt. Blue juniors and seniors assist where they’re needed.
Each year, Smith said, the students net between $4,000 and $5,000 from crafter fees and money made at their own tables. Each class sells food items, like cookies, pies and fudge.
Smith said she never counts how many people attend but, she noted, the Mt. Blue gym is full for the duration of the event, from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. This year, she said, both attendance and student assistance were lower than usual, since Mt. Blue football team was playing a championship game Saturday in Portland. She had 80 fewer student and parent helpers than she anticipated. “Lots of students did a once-in-a-lifetime thing to go” to Portland for the game, she said.
Saturday morning, as shoppers milled around the gymnasium handling wares and catching up with acquaintances, 11-year-old Brenna Merrill of Norridgewock described her family’s scrapbooking supplies to all who’d listen. Her mother, Vicki Merrill, recently began selling “Once Upon a Family” scrapbooking books and photograph boxes. It’s “about creating simple traditions that don’t take a lot of time,” Brenna explained. Eyes alight, she described the memories she has helped record with her family. Like Thanksgiving, she said. “We all go up to Nana’s, and all the uncles tell a story and if you listen carefully, each story will change just a little every time it’s told.”
Next year’s fair will take place at the Nichols Expo Center in Wilton’s former GH Bass Building. The newly refurbished building will have power outlets for any crafters who want them, Smith said.
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