High hopes for country fair

BY MINOU JONATZKE

Hope School students are counting the final days before the annual country fair where they will be selling crafts they have created themselves.

Saturday’s fair offers a unique chance of family fun for a good cause, with about 40 stalls fundraising to provide additional resources for the children as well as the school’s ecological projects.

Fair favourites will be on offer including face painting, the infamous chocolate wheel, bouncy castles, and local dance performances.

Furthermore, you can prepare your homegrown idyll for spring with the various offerings at the plant market, such as strawberry seeds.

And for those who can’t wait until harvest for their jam, many booths will sell local preserves, baked goods and real fruit ice cream.

The adventure-seeking visitors can find different animals, a wood-chopping contest, quad bike rides, and the chance to win one of the grand raffle and silent auction prizes like a ferry ride or a truckload of firewood.

For the very first time, the students have taken the initiative to lead their own storefront.

The Year 1 and 2 tamariki have spent countless hours since Term 2 building the stall from wooden planks with a roof out of old real estate signs, using hammers, nails, saws, and a helping hand from their teachers.

They have even added guttering, a counter, and shelves to display their many arts and crafts. All of the crafts have been chosen and created by the kids and it really is true that kids have a more colourful view of things. Under the projective of mindfulness, well-being, and sustainability, they have made use of mainly donated, free or low-cost supplies.

The handmade sock puppets use clothes from the lost property bin, but worry not, they have been thoroughly cleansed and sprayed with essential oils to have a calming effect.  If you have gotten into a crafting mood yourself, the kids also offer to sell their hand-crafted rainsticks as a DIY kit. Let‘s just hope they don‘t work too well, so we can enjoy blue skies on Saturday.

The Hope School Country Fair is on Saturday from 11am to 2pm, at 316 Paton Rd.