Don't Miss the Alternative Gift Market!

Didn't get to the Alternative Gift Market last weekend?  Never fear, there's a whole extra weekend coming up!

The Alternative Gift Market is open  all weekend at the DeVargas Mall, Saturday 9-8:30 and Sunday 10:00 until 6:30.

There are also special performers this weekend! Here is the schedule:

Saturday, December 14  10:00-Noon   Dahlia Cummings, guitar, songs and stories for the whole family especially the little ones.

Saturday, December 14    1:30pm Wise Fool's fantastic stilt walkers will be at the store entrance--meet the elf and two amazing birds. They are over 12 feet tall!!

Sunday, December 15   2:00pm Family Story time by Walter Cook, Children's Librarian

The AGM provides people with the opportunity to purchase gifts that provide urgently needed assistance to local and international organizations providing shelter, medical help, food, working to reduce illiteracy and assisting homeless veterans, among other projects. People can choose from close to 60 different items. The choice literally runs from A to Z. This popular type of market is held through the US. All donations are tax deductible.

Among those participating are:
• The Santa Fe Public Library and Books For Babies, where books can be purchased for newborns and for the Library to provide books for the thousands of children seeking books to check out. Last year almost 200,000 library children’s books were checked out! Books are needed to replenish the book collections which provide a wide selection for parents at the libraries.  New mothers are given a book to take home from the hospital through Books For Babies. These two needs are supportive of early literacy efforts.
• La Familia provides free dental care and other health assistance
• Santa Fe’s Interfaith Shelter provides safe shelter
• Veterans helping veterans works to support homeless veterans
• Esperanza provides housing and help for abused women and their families
• The Alternative Gifts International is a non-profit which offers dozens of projects that can be supported worldwide in the areas of health, education, literacy and humanitarian causes. They provide an alternative for donors to designate charitable gifts through carefully selected agencies around the world.

[In the photo: Cookies are being served to the 3rd-6th grade student choir of Santa Nino School. Our reindeer elf with the Santo Nino choir director, Kathleen Echols, who performed at the De Vargas Mall Alternative Gift Market event.]