Austin resident Kay Fisher-Irwin picked up a small ceramic figurine of an angel and ran her fingers over its detailed hair.
"Everything here is just so unique and unusual," Fisher-Irwin said as she put down the angel and glanced around Hyde Park Presbyterian Church.
Fisher-Irwin attends the International Holiday Market Fair every year to find ornate gifts, such as the little angel, to give as Christmas presents to her family and friends, she said.
Different churches in Austin host the annual fair the weekend before Thanksgiving. Local vendors sell goods they have collected from foreign countries and give the profits to the items' makers, which makes all of the goods fair trade.
"This is a good cause, and it's fun to see the pretty stuff from all over the world," said Marylyn Rutherford, a volunteer at the fair. "It's better than buying from Wal-Mart or China."
Since the fair began 26 years ago, Rutherford said, it has since then moved to a different church. A church must not charge rent in order to host the holiday market fair.
Some, like local vendor Christine Howery, have participated in the event for many years.
"We've done this event for a long time and have a long history with it," Howery said as she sat in a corner and watched people admire her textile display. "People that have bought from us come back and look for us."
Howery represents Colores Del Pueblo, a nonprofit organization that sells fair trade goods from Guatemala and Ecuador. The women who made the textiles will be paid fair wages, "enabling their communities to prosper from the grassroots up," according to the Colores Del Pueblo Web site.
Austin residents Christine Vaughn and her friend Barbara Seton stopped and admired the textiles for a few minutes. They exchanged ideas about where the blue textile Seton had in her hand would look best in her home.
"Buying crafts here, you feel like you're contributing to the development of someone's community and self-esteem," Vaughn said. "They're also gifts that can never be duplicated."
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