There were 43 vendors this year, said Kevin Duecker, the director of children’s ministries at Pierce Church. Vendors sold a variety of items from baked goods to wooden toys, Easter baskets to jewelry.
He and Lindsay Crawford, an attendee of Pierce Church, coordinated the fair, which was held on April 5.
“We have a lot of talent in this county, in this area, with , you know, artists and bakers and all, you know, jewelry makers and all sorts of things,” Crawford said. “So I think it was just neat to have a place in Upland where we could come together and kind of show off the talents of our community members.”
The craft fair enables face-to-face socialization, Crawford said. She said it’s nice to see people eat good food and look at the art that’s on display.
Crawford said one of her goals with the fair was to showcase the talent of their community members.
The craft fair also helped fundraise for Pierce Church fundraise for their kids programs, she said.
Duecker said they knew the craft fair would bring in a profit, but they weren’t looking to just pocket money. Instead, they chose to use the earnings from the fair to fund scholarships and other things for the kid’s programs.
“We don't ever want finances to be a hurdle for a kid to participate in a ministry event that, you know, does have a registration fee or something like that,” he said.
Crawford said the way this event showcases the community’s talent and raises money for the kid’s program is awesome.
“It’s a marriage of all these good things coming together… for our little town,” she said. “That is so awesome.”
Yvonne Allen and her daughter, Caryn Gosser, sold handmade birdhouses from gourds, baked goods and decorative wooden signs. It was their second year selling and their third year attending the fair.
They keep returning to the Pierce Church craft fair because it is family-oriented, Allen said, and they get to see people they know.
Duecker said a lot of people from the church offer to serve at the event by helping with setup and cleanup orf the food. He said a group of men at the church even enjoy smoking the meat for the offered food.
They are known as the “Pierce Pit Masters.”,” he said.
“Whenever we have an event like this, they all kind of check in with each other about, you know, where the sales are on the pork, and then they'll get together and smoke meat together. And so that's another way to kind of build community,” he said.
Crawford originally suggested the church host a craft fair. She had been trying to imagine what they could use the big space of the church building for.
“It was so exciting that first year to see it all come together,” she said. “And to see the community show up for this, we had, you know, dozens of vendors that were interested in being here, and then we had gobs of people from the surrounding communities even come.”
The Pierce Church building used to be a factory, Duecker said. The church wanted to steward the large space well and make it accessible to other people, he said. Community-oriented events are part of that.
“It's very large, very spacious,” Duecker said. “So it becomes, like, very versatile to do community oriented events… So we just want to steward the space well and make it accessible for other people, especially unchurched people.”
