Fair provides holiday gift alternatives

Residents can make donations in lieu of gifts for family members

‘‘A lot of people can relate to the experience of trying to buy a gift during the holidays for someone on their list who has everything they need. Or they feel that the holidays have become over-commercialized and want to give a meaningful, non-commercial gift,” McCray said. ‘‘An alternative gift is a donation to a charity given in honor of a family member or friend that supports a specific good or service for a person in need.”

The gift fair is co-sponsored by Alternative Gifts of Greater Washington—a nonprofit organization that promotes the idea of alternative gift giving—the Hyattsville Nurturing Moms and the Hyattsville Organization for a Positive Environment.

James Groves, moderator of the H.O.P.E. list serve, said being involved with the gift fair falls in line with the organization’s mission, by helping foster a positive environment.

‘‘What these fairs do is help people not buy junk but buy something that’s going to help the community...and, in some cases, even the world,” he said.

Groves said he has also given alternative gifts in the past.

‘‘Last year, I bought trees for my office. So each person got four trees, which is equivalent to what an office uses in paper [per year],” he said.

Between six and eight charities are expected to participate in the fair, offering three levels of giving.

‘‘A lot of times people are looking for smaller gifts as stocking-stuffers or supplemental gifts, so we ask the charities to submit different gift levels,” McCray said.

For example, a shopper can spend $10 through So Others Might Eat and provide pajamas for one child in a homeless shelter. A gift of $25 will pay for a 30-minute session of intensive family counseling and case management at SOME’s Thea Bowman House for homeless families. If a shopper spends $35, he or she can provide breakfast for 24 homeless mothers and children.

Maranda Ward, program manager with the adolescent clinic’s prevention education program at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., said by offering their services in the alternative gift fair, they are able to raise the money needed to run their programs.

The Teen Life Crisis Club is a 26-week after-school program for 11- to 14-year-olds providing primary and secondary HIV prevention education.

‘‘We’re 100 percent grant-funded,” she said. ‘‘So this is a way to offset some of our costs.”

Another mission of Alternative Gifts of Greater Washington is to sponsor a few area gift fairs. This year it is sponsoring the fairs in Hyattsville and Takoma Park. Both will take place during Alternative Gifts Week, which is from Saturday to Dec. 9.

Takoma Park’s Fair will be held Saturday at the Takoma Park Presbyterian Church. Fairs will also be held in Adelphi and Bethesda, and in Leesburg, Reston, Annandale and Herndon, Va.

McCray said having the fair at Franklin’s, instead of at a church like the Takoma Park fair, will give shoppers a different shopping experience while supporting a local business.

‘‘They have a nice general store with a lot of nice gifts for kids, or you could take a break from shopping and have a beer,” he said.

E-mail Maya T. Prabhu at mprabhu@gazette.net.

if you go

The Hyattsville Alternative Gift fair will be held 2 to 5 p.m. Dec. 9 at Franklin’s Restaurant, 5121 Baltimore Ave.