Upland hosts spring craft fair

Pierce Church hosted their annual spring craft fair in Upland on Saturday.

Vendors from Upland and the nearby area came together to sell their crafts to the community and make connections.

“It’s really neat to see a lot of people from Upland and surrounding places come together” vendor Lindsay Crawford said. “You get to catch up with old friends, which is really fun. You can invite them to church here and just, you know, see how they’re doing.”

The fair gave crafters an opportunity to share their work with other locals.

“I wanted to try to get my book out to the community” self-published author Jessica Miller said. “Of course, you want your first readers to be where you live so I wanted to come out.”

The funds that Pierce Church collected are set to go towards their children and youth ministries.

“It’s typically a fundraiser for discounts for camp scholarships for our kids or youth ministry programs or for different outings” Pierce Church’s Director of Children’s Ministries, Kevin Duecker said. “If we’re going to go to Kings Island or something like that with the kids or the youth. We don’t ever want finances to be an obstacle for families that we’re ministering to. So, this is one way that we can raise money for that.”

Pierce Church fundraised by charging a vendor fee. Admission and parking were free for anyone who wanted to attend. 

“I love the idea that we’re helping the church and helping the church and helping the youth. And then I think it’s just a way of connecting” vendor Kim Kreischer said.

Crawford and Duecker lead the event together.

“She and I co-lead it together” Duecker said. “And so, I kind of do all the stuff that like I’m able to do on the church side. But because she’s also part of that community with the crafters, she’s able to connect with them and be like, hey, Pierce Church is doing this craft fair again.”

Pierce Church also fundraised by hosting a smoked meats lunch during the craft fair.

“We also have a lot of guys here in the church that love to do smoked meats” Duecker said. “So we do like a pulled pork lunch or a beef brisket lunch where those guys will get together, you know, like yesterday or the day before, you know, they’ll do the 12 hour smokes and smoke all the meats. And so there’s community getting built there.”