UPDATE (December 12):
This year's Alternative Gift Market and Giving Tree raised an amazing combined total of over $12,900 in cash and gift cards for the Threshold Fund and our community partners: Casa Latina, Lambert House, Lowell Elementary, L’Arche Seattle, L’Honey Tacoma, Operation Nightwatch, and Seattle Seafarers. Plus, on top of that, a sleigh full of toys for Mary's Place and eleven warm and colorful outfits for Lowell students!
A team of more than forty people made the 2025 Alternative Gift Market a resounding success, making edible gifts, decorating and setting up Bloedel Hall, pricing items, staffing the tables, and cleaning up afterwards. Erik Donner deserves special recognition as the financial wizard responsible for tracking all the donations.
Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time or talents, donated or made items for the Alternative Gift Market, fulfilled the tags on the Giving Tree with purchases of toys or gift cards, or made donations to our community partners and the Threshold fund. You really made a difference, and we are so very grateful.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 10 A.M.–1 P.M. (after the 9 and 11 a.m. services), in Bloedel Hall.
You won’t want to miss this year’s Alternative Gift Market on Sunday, November 23, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Bloedel Hall. This year's market will include unique handmade items you won’t find anywhere else, a bake sale with delicious treats, opportunities to donate to meaningful causes, and more.
This event benefits our community partner organizations: Lowell Elementary School, Casa Latina, Mary’s Place, Lambert House, Operation Nightwatch/Donna Jean’s Place, Seattle Seafarers Center, L’Arche Seattle, and the Threshold Fund.
- One-of-a-kind handmade items from Saint Mark’s ministries handmade items Quilt Ministry, the Ministry of Worsted Wool, and our neighbors at the Seattle Weavers' Guild
- Dried flower creations from the Flower Ministry
- Holy Honey from our hives, homemade cranberry sauce and elderberry syrup
- Hot cider, cocoa, coffee, tea, and baked goods, hot soup and fresh rolls available for shoppers
- Donation certificates to include in your Christmas cards to family and loved ones, indicating that you have given a donation to one of our community partner organizations in their honor, as a meaningful alternative to the consumer frenzy
- Products from L'Honey, a ministry of St Leo's parish, Tacoma, and L'Arche Farm, Tacoma.
- 2025 Giving Tree
Sign up to support this great community event here—volunteers are needed to help set up the space on Friday and Saturday, or helping out during the market itself or helping to clean up on Sunday.
Another way to give at the Alternative Gift Market is to bring something new and unopened that our community partner organizations need:
- Operation Nightwatch is collecting men's socks
- Saint Mark's is filling Christmas stockings for Donna Jean's Place (the women's shelter on the cathedral campus) tinted lip gloss, nail polish, and purse-sized hand lotion
- Mission to Seafarers needs full-sized toiletries: shampoo, body wash, bar of soap, toothpaste, deodorant, and shaving cream
Questions? Contact Canon Wendy Claire Barrie: wbarrie@saintmarks.org