Aloha … from BetheGifford Craft Fair now two days:
Nov. 21 and 22
RANDOLPH, Oct. 24, 2008 – Gifford Medical Center’s Annual Craft Fair in support of the Adult Day Program will be held over two days this year.
The Craft Fair will be held on Friday, Nov. 21 from 3-8 p.m. and Saturday, Nov. 22 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Gifford Conference Center and visitors’ entrance.
The fair is an opportunity for area residents to start their holiday shopping while also supporting a worthy cause. The Gifford Adult Day Program below the Bethel Health Center provides day care, personal hygiene help, medication administration, healthy meals, activities and socialization to the elderly and disabled.
“It supports the communities too, because it’s all local people who are the vendors,” notes Bonnie Pettit.
Pettit, a licensed nursing assistant and activity specialist at the Adult Day Program, is also a craft enthusiast who has organized the annual fair for about 10 of its 13 years.
The fair has expanded since its start. The first year the fair was in the hospital’s main lobby with only a handful of crafters selling their goods, Pettit says. Now the fair overflows the hospital’s conference rooms.
A constant has been the crafters, says Pettit. Some have sold their products at the fair since its start.
Randolph’s Kathie LaPerle is one.
“I have sold stuff there for a long time. This is the only one (craft fair) that I do,” says LaPerle, a Gifford employee who in her free time makes “plastic canvas” ornaments, door hangings, tissue box covers and more.
LaPerle was new to crafting when the fair began. “I do more stuff now. The more I get to do it, the faster I go on a project.”
She calls crafts a stress reliever and looks forward to the fair each year.
Besides LaPerle’s plastic canvas, on sale at the fair this year will be a large variety of crafts, including wooden toys, quilted items, beaded jewelry, hand-knit and crocheted items such as hat and mitten sets, soaps and bath accessories, soy candles, Christmas ornaments, music boxes and more. Also on sale will be maple products, homemade breads, jellies and pickles.
Call Pettit at (802) 728-2165 for more information, including vendor space availability.
Gifford is on Route 12 south of Randolph village at 44 S. Main St. The Conference Center entrance is just off from the patient parking area and is marked. The wheelchair-accessible visitors’ entrance is on the southern end of the hospital.