A special Seniors Craft Sale is coming to the Fort Frances Senior Centre in December, and everyone is welcome to check it out.
The craft sale itself is set to run on Sunday, December 5 from 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. and all of the participating vendors will be those age 55 or older who have some items to sell from a craft or hobby they do in their day-to-day life. According to Senior Centre manager Cindy Noble, plenty of the people who utilize the Senior Centre are active in their chosen hobbies, though it isn’t just limited to seniors who use the centre.
“It’s just crafts that seniors make,” Noble said of the sale.
“They have to do something with their time, so it’s a good time for them to get out there, sell stuff and maybe see what people want. We’ll have a variety; we’ll have woodcrafts, baking, Christmas decorations and ornaments, knitting, crocheting. Lots of different stuff.”
Nobel said the sale currently has more than a dozen different vendors signed up to take part, with room for just a few more.
“We have 12 to 13 tables right now,” Noble confirmed.
“We could maybe take two more but we’d probably have to put them in the pool room, so if anybody else wants to come we could make room for two or three more. It will hopefully all be set up in the main room, and there will be room for people to move around. We want everybody to come, it’s not just for seniors.”
Nobel explained the idea to hold a Seniors Craft Sale came from one of the regular members of the Seniors Centre.
“One of the girls said ‘you know, we should really have a senior craft sale here,'” Noble recalled.
“We just started talking about it and we thought well, why not? Let’s try it and see how it goes.”
From there, Noble started advertising spaces for the sale in order to see how much interest the senior community would have in taking part.
“I think the first time I put it on Facebook I had three people that night that contacted me,” Noble said.
“Then there were three or four more within the next two or three days. People are really excited. Some people I know have been doing their hobby for a long time, but there are a few ladies I don’t even know. It’s nice that they’re coming out to the centre. Maybe they’ll come back for other things too.”
Noble said she’s also looking into holding another senior craft sale in the spring as well, that one aimed at offering up goods for the summer season.
Noble said it’s also been a good time to be at the Senior Centre, with new people attending and big plans to increase the offerings in the coming years, thanks to the recent announcement of funding for an expansion.
“We have people coming in who have never been here before, which is really, really nice,” Noble said.
“The card playing has probably doubled in a lot of the games. We’ve got more pool players out, and more activities that we didn’t have before. They are going over big. It’s wonderful It’s nice to see this place finally being used to its potential. It will be so nice once we can get the addition built on.”
Noble said the plans are to build about 30 feet on the south side of the centre across the length of the building, where she says they hope to have another pool room, as well as a space for exercising and line dancing, and potentially a small meeting room, which Noble said could be used for a book club or other activities.
“Where the pool room is now, I’m thinking we might put the card players,” she explained.
“So they’re not out in the middle of the floor and interacting when people are trying to have coffee. I think it will be a lot better. We’ll be able to have more activities. And there are a few more activities we have been asked about having.”
