Holiday Village hosting craft show to aid local businesses

The Havre Holiday Village Mall’s annual craft show returns Saturday, May 1, to aid local business amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Events Coordinator Jenna Holt said the event had to be canceled last year due to the pandemic. To her knowledge, it was the first time the craft show had been canceled since she has been in the events coordinator position. Following safe events in the summer and during the Christmas season, the decision was made to move forward with the craft show.

“The reason we canceled is we really didn’t know how to navigate it. It was so fresh and new for all of us. We just didn’t know what to do. We progressed on, though. We hosted a great event on Thursday nights called Summer Nights. It was a vendor show farmers market outside. We’re planning on still doing that this year. COVID taught us something that we can do more with our space,” Holt said.

“It really does also highlight the merchants that we do have in the mall. You know, we have a lot of really great merchants open every single day. Any traffic that comes through the mall, helps them as well. It’s kind of a joint effort where I think everybody together makes this event wonderful,” she continued.

The craft show will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Holt said the event typically has between 20 and 30 unique crafters and vendors. She added that vendors will be selling everything from jewelry to unique kids clothes, to homemade goodies, home decor, skincare and more. Holt said the event is a great chance to buy gifts for Mother’s Day.

Holt said she expects a similar number of crafters and vendors this year. She added that COVID-19 safety precautions will be in place.

“We try to keep pods together like groups of five vendors per pod and then they’re all evenly spaced. We also require each vendor to have their hand sanitizer and be sanitary with some sort of sanitization wipes at their stations so they can keep cleaning high-touch areas. We do also up our maintenance, so the bathrooms are getting cleaned often and other high-touch surfaces are getting cleaned more during these events. We do follow whatever county mandates are in place at the time of each event,” Holt said.

For Holt, she said, the most enjoyable part of the event is bringing the community together, especially now, and aiding small businesses and those in the mall year-round.

“They’ve been through the ups and the downs of the mall. We celebrate the good, and these people, I feel, certainly should be celebrated because they’ve been through, you know, COVID. Everybody in this town, like with the small business side of it, they’ve all been through so much and I just think that, it’s a great way to celebrate small business all in general,” Holt said.

The event will also feature an Indian taco sale put on by New Hope Apostolic Church and its youth group. Pastor Marvin Russette’s wife, Barbara Preite Russette, is in need of a liver transplant. The proceeds from the sale will aid the church in raising money for the transplant. Tacos with a drink and dessert will be sold for $10 per plate.