Ten Thousand Villages Festival

Invest in the world while shopping for the holidays at the Ten Thousand Villages Festival on Saturday, December 4, and Sunday, December 5.  Discover beautiful, unique home décor, hand loomed textiles, pottery, jewelry, baskets, toys, gifts and a variety of other well-made, unusual items at affordable prices.

The Festival will be held at First Presbyterian Church’s J. Murphy Fellowship Center, 508 Middle Street, New Bern. Festival hours are 9:30 am to 3 pm on Saturday and 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm on Sunday.  Admission is free.

This is the fifth year the church’s Presbyterian Women’s organization, in cooperation with other individuals and groups within the church, has sponsored a Ten Thousand Villages Festival. The event is an outreach/mission project for the church.

All items are made by skilled local artisans in developing countries; they receive “fair trade” prices for their handicrafts.  These people, living in over 30 nations in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed. Income from the ongoing orders from Ten Thousand Villages provides stability in their lives and enables the workers to send their children to school, to purchase food, clothing, housing and health care, and to dream of a better future.

Ten Thousand Villages, a nonprofit fair trade organization based in Akron, PA, is the largest fair trade retailer in North America. It provides vital, fair, dependable income to artisans around the world by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America. Click here to visit their website.