Central New Yorkers might be choosing to stay home this Black Friday and avoid crowded stores because of the surge in COVID-19 infections. But the organizers of an annual holiday tradition in Syracuse have a safe way to find unique gifts while supporting local artists.
However, going virtual isn’t exactly what they had in mind for the 50th anniversary of the Plowshares Craftsfair.
Plowshares Committee member Jonathan Trier says they held out for as long as they could before deciding what to do.
"It was really difficult to decide to go virtual. We knew we wanted to do something."
They knew the Nottingham High School gym and cafeteria would be off limits. That’s been their venue since 2004.
"When you go to Plowshares physically, it's so vibrant. There's immediately a sense of community. It's nothing like any other craftsfair you ever go do. We really did the best we could to make the virtual Plowshares as close as possible to the experience. Of course there's nothing that will make it quite the same."
Karen Kerney is another committee member and local crafter who’s been part of Plowshares for 45 of its 50 years.
"Nothing can quite replace the fact that this is an annual meeting of a huge community where often there's only people you see at Plowshares. It's a meet and greet, lots of hugs, lots of kids who grew up going to Plowshares."
She says they’ve created a website which features the gym and cafeteria as separate pages, and 50 vendors organized by craft. Kerney says there will be a special weekend of events lined up December 5th and 6th, when they’d normally have the craftsfair.
"We're going to have a live Zoom webinar where some of the musicians will play. We'll have some roundables, looking at the history of Plowshares, what it's like to be a craftsperson, small business person in the time of COVID."
She says one of the main ideas behind the festival originated from its humble beginnings in 1970 at Plymouth Congregational Church downtown.
"Part of Plowshares is you get to meet the artist, you get to talk to the person that made that product. It's taking what had become a consumer oriented commercial holiday and bringing it home to a village scale."
Plowshares is also a key fundraiser for the Syracuse Peace Council, generating about a third of its annual revenue. Visitors to the website are asked to consider donating $2 to $5, which is their sliding scale entry fee for the traditional craftsfair.
The craftsfair marketplace is open through January 31st.
