St. Anne's hosts virtual Christmas bazaar

COVID-19 managed to stall several Poplar Bluff area church fall festivals and holiday bazaars this year, but one local group decided to think outside the box.

Each year, St. Anne’s Society, a group of Sacred Heart Parish Council of Catholic Women, Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church’s Women’s Missionary Union, a trio of Methodist congregations including First United Methodist Church, Grace United Methodist Church and Brown Chapel AME and the Church of the Holy Cross draw crowds looking for unique treasures as well as their favorite holiday treats.

St. Anne’s Society was established in 1924 to provide support to the parish, school and community through service and socialization, all while promoting the spiritual growth of their faith. All the women in the parish are members of the society and they take their efforts seriously, but they also wanted to follow the CDC guidelines and keep everyone safe.

A letter from the group’s officers, Mary Farris, president; Gail Fox-Dohrman, vice president; Chris East, secretary; and Jerrica Fox, treasurer, went out reminding everyone of why they have the bazaar.

The epistle said, “As many of you are aware, our major fundraiser is our annual Christmas bazaar held each year in November. The proceeds allow us to make generous donations to our church for altar and other needed supplies, our parish school, St. Vincent de Paul Society, Christmas gifts for parish personnel, for our youth to attend the March for Life in Washington, D.C., in addition to providing fresh flowers weekly for the church altar and funeral meals for the families of deceased parishioners.”

This year, due to the pandemic, the society decided to hold a virtual bazaar “so we can continue to support the causes,” the officers challenged the group “we need your support. We are asking for your help by selling or purchasing the enclosed raffle tickets.”

The raffle tickets were for items “our member Judy Moffitt, generously donated,” which included “a beautiful hand embroidered quilt and shams, crocheted Afghan throw and baby Afghan.”

Two additional prizes of $250 and $50 also were offered.

While each member was asked to sell four packets of tickets for the Nov. 7 drawing, they were reminded additional tickets were available by calling or texting Cassie Willey or Fox.

Along with the tickets, they were reminded to “visit our St. Anne’s Bazaar (virtual only) facebook page for further information and where we hope to have other items available for purchase. We also invite you to join our St. Anne’s of Sacred Heart Facebook group page.”

Fox said, “Everyone pitched in to help for sure. Our biggest sellers were tamales this year, along with raffle ticket sales. We sold 1,644 tamales. We are so thankful to our Guadalupe Group for donating their time to make them. We typically raise approximately $9,000 each year from our bazaar. This year we collected approximately $6,000. We all were extremely happy with the outcome and so very thankful for every single person who helped and purchased from the event.”

Betty Tripp, who is president of the Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist WMU, said, “COVID is the reason we are not in church right now.”

The WMU raises money to help provide “Christmas for our low income,” Tripp said. WMU members plan to stay healthy “so we can continue next year.”

Tripp said, hopefully, they’ll be able to take their advance orders for special items next year like they have in the past.

First Methodist Church office manager Renee Bobo said, due to COVID, the church is not hosting large groups and is following CDC guidelines.

The Church of the Holy Cross (Holy Cross Episcopal Church) also is not having large gatherings.