Video: Starkville Christmas Hand Works Bazaar

STARKVILLE, Miss.(WCBI)—The holiday season is quickly approaching and making those important purchases can be made easy by events like a Christmas Handworks Bazaar.

It’s an annual event held by the Starkville First United Methodist Church to raise funds for families in need.

Usually shoppers head to malls or outlet stores to do their holiday shopping;However, The First United Methodist Church of Starkville are looking to provide the community with an meaning full alternative.

” We are a hand works bazaar which means everything must be hand made or hand produced or hand cooked hand sown what ever. So you wont find anything store bought here,”said Vendor Coordinator Kathryn Laughlin.

The event provides quality shopping and a quality atmosphere.

” We provide entertainment throughout the day so the shoppers would usually get music or our P-K 4 year olds performed for us before lunch but we make quite an effort to get the word out that this is a wonderful place to come and get quality product,” said Event Organizer Suzanna Dressel.

Sue Hall and her husband have been selling hand crafted spoons here for 11 years . Hall says they come back each year for the love and support they receive from the church and community.

” It”s something he enjoys doing and has just loved to be able to come to a show like this and the people are so wonderful. It’s just the greatest show that we attend,” said Vendor Sue Hall.

The proceeds benefit the Starkville habitat for humanity. Event Coordinator Suzanne Dressel says she hopes that partnership will help more people in the future.

” We are a covenant partner with Starkville area habitat for humanity. That means our church has pledge to give a minimum of $20,000 each year for Starkville habitat and we do these fund raisers to help earn that money throughout the year and every 3-4 years when the church has actually earned the money we want to says that we are building the house and we are providing the volunteers from the church and get the whole church involved as well,” said Dressel.

Dressel says the turn out was great today but she hopes it continues to grow each year.

“We are increasing in participation each year. We’re limited in space so about 40 vendors is the maximum we can take and still have room to move around in here for shoppers but we’ve done a lot of things to try and encourage people to come and we’ve been working with publicity to get the word out to our neighboring town communities and churches,”said Dressel.

The Habitat Home The church is raising money for will go to a church employee. They expect the family to be in their new home before Christmas.