Adelphi church helps worldwide for the holidays

Churchgoers hope helping the needy can be a lesson for children, grandchildren

Thursday, Dec. 21, 2006

by Dennis Carter

Staff Writer

Those ads, along with a desire to help the less fortunate across the world, drove Stark and fellow members of Adelphi’s Paint Branch Unitarian Universalist Church (PBUUC) to give essential gifts such as clean drinking water and medical kits to people in developing nations around the world.

The Alternative Gift Market, which came to the church two years ago, offers members and local residents a chance to lend a helping hand to Americans and others in countries like Vietnam, Kenya, Nepal and Haiti who lack basic daily needs.

‘‘I feel pretty good giving [in the alternative market] because it’s going to people who really need the help,” said Stark, whose family donated funds to a Latin American health clinic and to help Central Asians have access to wheelchairs.

Market organizer Rene McDonald said the church has collected more than $4,500 in donations this year, topping last year’s total by about $1,000.

Flipping through a catalogue compiled by Alternative Gifts International, a Wichita-based company, churchgoers and people throughout the community gathered at PBUUC on Sunday afternoons throughout December, deciding which cause they would help fund this holiday season.

Carol Carter Walker, a PBUUC member for five years, said the gift market capitalizes on Americans’ proclivity for gift giving during the last months of the year.

‘‘I think [some] people find the whole commercialization of the holidays distasteful, and the [market] takes advantage of people’s charitable mood,” said Carter Walker, a resident of the District.

Carter Walker said the alternative market fit into the church’s focus on helping the needy.

‘‘The market was a natural fit,” she said. ‘‘People could see it was a chance to conceivably do some good in the world.”

Donating items in her grandchildren’s names, Carter Walker said, could motivate them to recognize the economic desperation faced by families in the United States and beyond.

‘‘I think it has raised her social consciousness,” she said, referring to her granddaughter, 19-year-old Maria Sneed.

With options such as buying a year’s supply of milks and snacks for a preschool Palestinian child — ranging around $100 — or $28 for a working stove for a family in Nicaragua and Honduras, church member Ronnie Scotkin said giving to the market is more fulfilling than buying knick-knacks at the local mall.

‘‘These are really good causes that are generally ignored,” said Scotkin, a Greenbelt resident who gave money for vaccines in Vietnam, among other causes. ‘‘This helps people who would have otherwise gone unhelped.”

Seeing the steady flow of families at this month’s Alternative Gift market was a welcomed change from the never-ending lines spilling out of malls and stores this time of year, McDonald said.

‘‘It is really exciting to see how generous people can be,” said McDonald, a University Park resident. ‘‘We’re trying to combat some of the materialism and let people know they don’t need another shirt or video game or another toy.”

E-mail Dennis Carter at dcarter@gazette.net.