Marilyn Gremse and her family have enough “stuff.”
This holiday season, instead of filling their own stockings, they’ll be putting their money into the Alternative Gift Project — making, in Gremse’s words, “a broader world at a time when many people are looking inward.”
“As a family, we talked about what is important to us, instead of ‘What CD do you want?’ Gremse said.
Sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Bainbridge Island and North Kitsap, the project offers a “shopping list”of tangible giving opportunities, from $11 to buy three jars of peanut butter for an area food bank, to $50 to supply clean water to 30 rural Ugandan families for a year via non-profit organizations that help people locally or internationally.
Carrie Klein, who chairs the church’s Social Action Committee, says a shopper may think, “Well, for $35, I could buy two CDs, or provide a below-the-knee prosthetic to a landmine survivor in Burma through Clear Path International.”
“People like to know what they get for their money no matter what it’s for,” committee member Julie Hill said, “so that they can say ‘(for this donation), this thing will happen.’”
The committee selected nonprofits that directly help people; every penny donated will be passed on to receiving agencies.
“This is not a church fund-raiser,” Klein said. “We see our work on the project as a reflection of our faith and principles that extend Christmas gift-giving to ‘family’ to mean our community.”
Since church volunteers supply the labor, administrative costs are very small, and are covered by a portion of the $1 cards that accompany each gift.
The rest of the card money goes to benefit developmentally disabled young adults at the Bainbridge Island Special Needs Foundation who produce the cards, and towards printing costs. The fellowship started the Alternative Gift Project among the congregation last year, and raised over $4,000.
This year, the project is open to the community and has expanded to benefit more than a dozen local nonprofits and Unitarian Universalist projects that help people on Bainbridge Island, in North Kitsap and around the world.
The committee hopes to raise over $12,000 this year.
Klein cites a 2002 study by American Express, which found that the average American spends a little over $1,000 on holiday gifts. If just 200 people spent $100 of that $1,000 on an alternative gift, she said, it would quickly add up to $20,000.
“Especially for small non-profits, even an extra thousand dollars can make a huge difference,” Klein said.
Carolyn Kempkes, another Social Action Committee member, also sees alternative gifts as educating children and promoting giving. She plans to send each of her nieces and nephews $5 donations towards buying a Spanish-language “Magic School Bus” book for a library on Bainbridge’s Nicaraguan sister island, Ometepe.
When Gremse’s 10-year old son Brendan, who loves National Geographic magazine, saw a listing to buy Spanish subscriptions of National Geographic for a public library on Ometepe, he said, “Mom, that’s what I have to do!”
From the feedback Klein has received, the Alternative Gift Project has found its place.
“Many people we talk to are ready for some alternative to the drumbeat of ‘buy more,’” she said.
Hill muses that the traditional handmade gifts of yore have given way to commercial gift buying.
“The project is a way modern people can make gift exchanging meaningful again,” she said.
