With colorful booths, hand-crafted items, hot food options and a variety of student volunteers, Whitney PTC hosted its first major event of the year Oct. 20 in the school’s gym and cafeteria. The Artisan Craft Faire was a variation of the event held in previous years, involving student groups as a fundraising opportunity. Publications students hosted a pancake breakfast from 7 a.m. until 9 a.m. and the PTC and other volunteers helped with the craft fair from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. Admission was free and raffle tickets were available for purchase at the door to raffle off an array of craft fair prizes such as ties, bags and decorative holiday items.

The purpose of the event was to raise money for the school.

“The (vendors) who come to the craft fair are paying for rental space and all of the funds will go back to WHS athletics, computer and library funds and anything else the school needs,” PTC member Sharon Barker said.

Barker headed the event staff for this year and worked to bring in the 49 vendors and 25 student and parent volunteers for the event.

“It’s good for students because there’s a lot of variety and everything is pretty cheap,” Lexi Ammirati said. She and her mom spent the morning at a booth for the Culinary Competition Team.

Within the vendors, there were 15 different types of booths set up.

“There’s a lot of jewelery and crocheting booths. It’s good for looking for little gifts, like Christmas gifts,” craft fair attendee Carol Stone said.

The event was scheduled to coincide with Whitney Junior Wildcats football games as a way to direct traffic towards the event.

“I was here for the football game and I knew it was the same day so I came over after,” Stone said.

Out of the 49 vendors, there were booths for Mary Kay products, Vault Jeans, marshmallow shooters, Tupperware, candles, dog treats, ties, bags, scarves, soaps, an array of crocheted materials and jewelry and more.

Troy Oliver, a representative for his mother’s company called Nana’s Bagtobag and his friends’ soap company, Filthy Farmgirl, based in Hawaii, said craft fairs are a good way to get unique products out into the market.

“(The craft fair) lets companies work with the public and sell merchandize and it lets people find unique items for holiday gifts,” Oliver said.

Oliver personally sees a lot of benefits from craft fairs like this one.

“For the company, it gives exposure and lets people find them. (Buyers) don’t have to go to the mall, they can go to a craft fair and find things,” Oliver said. “For the students, it helps fundraise and gives them exposure to their school. It gets students to interact with companies and learn about business in the real world.”

Not only did companies gain exposure, but with four different school groups involved in the craft fair, students also gained attention.

Ammirati helped sell baked goods for $1 made by the school’s culinary competition team at her club’s booth.

“It’s an opportunity for us to have volunteer experience and we get money for it. It helps get us money to get the (competition) team to the Pasadena Convention Center Prostart Challenge next year,” Ammirati said.

Seeing the involvement of the yearbook staff, culinary program, speech and debate  and Key Club, Barker wants to further expand on student involvement in this event for future years.

“If we could get a few more of the clubs involved there would be more of an ownership of the event and it would get a nice rumble throughout the city. All of those families would know about the event via their children,” Barker said.

The PTC focused primarily on fundraising for the school, but also wanted to promote students in other aspects.

“(The event) gives students a chance to give back to the school, gives them community service and gives them a chance to see what its like in the real world to try and make a living. Every one of these vendors here, this could be their sole support of their living so (the students) can see that that’s an avenue they can take,” Barker said.

Although this event is new to the PTC, Barker believes that it went according to plan.

“We’ve had very positive feedback. It’s organized, has a fair amount of traffic and the quality of all the vendors has been very high,” Barker said.

For future events, if students want to volunteer, they can email the PTC at their website  to help set up, clean up or run the events. Or, for parents who are interested in joining the PTC, they can fill out an inquiry on the website, at schedule pickup or at any PTC event.

Barker said, “There’s a lot of volunteers that work tirelessly and we all do it because we love our school.”

by EMMA RICHIE