Kindergarten students Lexia and Nichole work on a puzzle at Cambridge Public School.
The transition from kindergarten to grade school can be a difficult one for many students. This is why the funds from this year’s Fabric Flea Market, Cambridge Street Community Public School’s only fundraiser, will buy school kits for kindergartners, as well as a puppet show and a new freezer for the school.
In the past, the fabric fair has provided much-needed materials for students, says Kim Nelson, principal at Cambridge.
Every year, donations come into the Centretown school starting in September, says Gail Cariou, an organizer of the fabric fair. The fabric is sorted, cut and priced before it can be sold the day of the fair which is always the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Vendors bring their own personal collections of fabric or yarn, along with other crafts, to sell at their tables. A percentage of the sales and the price of admission goes directly to the school.
At the recent event at the Glebe Community Centre, about 1,500 people came through the doors over four hours and $9,100 was raised, Cariou says. Once all expenses are paid for, the school should receive about $8,600.
“[The fair] provides field trips for our children. Last year, it bought team pinnies, extra books for our library – anything to enrich the child’s learning experience comes from the funding from this fabric fair,” she says.
Mynhung Le, a former Cambridge student now in Grade 9 at Lisgar Collegiate, says she has seen first-hand how the extra funding affects students.
In Le’s years as a student the school was able to get more sports equipment and do many activities that they would not otherwise have been able to do.
With the money from this year’s fair, Nelson says, Cambridge students will be able to see the difference it makes in their school activities through the kits for kindergarten children that include a pencil, Plasticine and some books.
Students will be allowed to keep the kits which will be filled with different school items throughout the year, and will “support pride of ownership” amongst the students, she says.
In addition to the preparedness kits, the funds will go to a new freezer to support the school’s breakfast program. Students can also look forward to a puppeteer performance in April by a company called Puppetmongers, says Nelson.
Cariou estimates that this year’s event was the 13th fair to benefit the school and knowing how the money helps makes all the planning and hard work worthwhile, she says.
“[It’s] very satisfying to know that the school actually has some money to be able to do the things that are simply not funded by the school board,” says Cariou.
Every year, the school helps out with the fair in many ways, from storing, sorting, measuring and pricing donated fabric to volunteering the day of the fair, says Kay Young, another fair organizer.
Many of the donated fabrics are of a high quality and sewers can find something at a very inexpensive price, says Mary Dunn, a vendor at the fair.
Dunn brings her own personal collection of fabric to the fair since she says she feels she will never use all the fabric she has currently.
Not all of the fabric sells every year, so unsold material is donated to various charities such as Victoria’s Quilts, an organization that makes quilts for cancer patients.
The school and fair organizers work together to run all aspects of the fair smoothly, but Nelson says they are bound by their common goal of helping students.