2003 Year in Review

1st Methodist Bazaar is Successful

A year ago Charla Olson of the Morrison United Methodist Church had a dream of building an old fashioned church bazaar to raise extra funds for the general fund. The parishioners started calling her the “bulletin board lady” because every Sunday she passed around a bulletin board full of things she needed donated. “I wanted everything donated” was her theme. Originally she hoped to raise $5000.

After getting the cooperation and hard work of most of the congregation to make pies, jams and jellies, and crafts she admitted, “I was so nervous, I felt like I was throwing a party and no one would come. When they told me they were making dinner for 300 I thought we’d be eating a lot of italian beef and strombolli!”

But she did not have to worry they came. The10-home tour brought 185 people through. The cookies and candies sold out in about 2 hours. Of the 700 jars of jams and jellies 650 sold. Only 8 pies were left from the 150 made, and they ran out of food for lunch.

And they are still selling. Sunday there were 6 tables of items left, after church there were only 4. A friend has volunteered to take leftover items to the Southside P.T.O. craft show. Two pages of orders were taken for rustic birdhouses. Other items that sold out were on “back-order”.

The concept for the bazaar came originally from a Methodist Church in Cambridge, where huge crowds gather to buy the homemade items. Cambridge helped Port Byron set up their bazaar and Port Byron in turn helped Morrison with their first annual bazaar. Olson was “shocked” to achieve a grand total of $9200 so far and with dreams of still achieving $10,000 it was “well worth the effort”.

In the weeks before the bazaar Olson did not think she could do this a second year but after the great turn out plans are already in the works. “My Junior High Sunday School Class will be disappointed when I won’t have any more crafts for them to make for the bazaar. They were a great source of help every Sunday. I let them each pick one item from the leftovers for a thank you,” Olson concluded.

by Barb Benson, theCity1.com
November 25, 2003