Quaker Fair – We’ll Miss You!

Kennett Meeting Takes a Rest This Year

Nothing makes one nostalgic like thinking of a favorite event that you have to miss, and knowing that Kennett Meeting’s Quaker Fair won’t be happening this year has done just that for me. It got me thinking about a document one of our members (late Friend Janet Heist) wrote about the origins of the Fair, and I looked for a copy. I’m glad to say I found it. According to her search of the documents at Swarthmore, in 1940 Kennett Friends Meeting had a committee whose main purpose was to raise funds for AFSC. The meeting held it’s first “Turkey Dinner” in March 1941, and this quickly became an annual tradition. In a few years, the event expanded into a bazaar, followed by “a tea and supper”, and this bazaar-AFSC-fundraiser continued for the next decade. Friend Janet even made special note of the proceeds in 1946 – $536.39 – which would be around $6800 in today’s dollars.

There seemed to be a break from the Fair from 1952-1955, while Kennett Friends were planning and building the new (current) Meeting House, but in 1956 the fundraising resumed, and the event was dubbed the “Quaker Fair” in the minutes for the first time. The name stuck, and the Quaker Fair has been an annual event at Kennett Meeting for the past 57 years.

Except not this year. Why not? And what happened? It’s hard to say, even though I was present for most of the discussion and discernment that lead to its laying down. I was also present for (most of) the last 40 Quaker Fairs – especially in the past 5 or 6 years, and witnessed this wonderful event become more and more of a struggle to produce.

For one thing, our membership has aged. The Friends who for decades assembled luncheon for 200 in a snap, knit sweaters and crafted ornaments all year, and individually priced every donated book – they were ready to retire! The rest of us did our best to fill their shoes – in and around work and kids, and our busy busy lives. We pulled it off, but we were exhausted – and every year our volunteer numbers dwindled a little more.

Our consumers have changed, too. Once upon a time a hand-knit sweater could command a decent price – but with the abundance of cheap goods available now, it became so that we couldn’t sell sweaters for the cost of the yarn to knit them! The same was happening in the Gift Shop. Customers got great bargains, but our knitters and crafters were donating not only their time, but often the materials as well. And books – well, even if you can find someone with stamina enough to carry, unpack and stack all the volumes, it seems there is a dwindling market for used books these days.

I understand it – but I’m still sad. Tbe Quaker Fair was more than just a fundraiser. It was an event that brought our larger community together. Some of those “distant” names on our membership list would materialize into actual bodies in the Meeting House – and it was great to see old F/friends. The children of the Meeting – freed from parental oversight – bounced between helping out where needed, and spending all their allowance in the children’s room or at the bake sale tables. (I can tell you, as a child, the Quaker Fair was magical.) Sometimes we’d get generations of the same family as patrons – the Fair was a tradition for us all. It was the official harbinger of the Christmas season, and everyone felt it.  There is joy in working together for a common purpose, and we felt that, too.

For me that was the hardest part of discerning what to do about the Fair this year — realizing that organizing the Quaker Fair was feeling less joyous and more burdensome in recent years. We just didn’t have enough dedicated volunteers to carry that load. So, this November Kennett is going back to our roots. Instead of the multi-department, whole-hog Quaker Fair we’ve become used to, we’ll be raising funds for AFSC with a luncheon and small bazaar. From 11 am to 2:30 pm we’ll be selling mushroom soup and chicken salad platters, along side a bake sale and various handmade items downstairs in the Meeting House. Since it’s mostly food for sale, it will be called “Quaker Fare” (get it?) – and perhaps this will be the start of a new tradition. There will be donation boxes in prominent places — it is a fundraiser, after all — and I hope we raise a good bit of money for AFSC and the amazing work they do.

But most of all, I hope people come.

View the event flyer here