Dear friends in hope,

In honor of our 13th year, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on where we have been as we continue forward and embrace a new format for this year.

Twelve years ago, Jenn Knepper picked up a copy of the Patriot News in 2007 during one of her night shifts as an emergency room nurse at Hershey Medical Center.

Her eye was drawn immediately to an article on the front page that shared the sentiment of your Grandma not needing another sweater and your Dad not needing another tie as a gift for the holidays. Instead, the community was being invited to participate in an alternative gift fair, put on by a local women’s giving circle in the Harrisburg area.

She was hooked, and filled with hope and inspiration, having been long in search of a way to celebrate the holidays that was more in line with her values and desire to minimize the amount both spent and received on gift-giving.

In researching more, Jenn uncovered an organization called the New Dream, where they offered alternatives to the consumer-laden holiday season and shared the telling statistic that 80% of Americans would welcome a holiday season without such a heavy emphasis on traditional consumerism.

Encouraged by what she found, Jenn reached out to that local women’s giving circle, a group of friends who met for dinner frequently who hosted the alternative gift fair along with many volunteer and philanthropic efforts in their respective communities. She could barely contain her excitement in sharing how brilliant she thought their idea was and wanted to replicate their idea in Lancaster to further expand the mission of hope with less stuff and more meaningful giving for the holidays.

After that first meeting, an amazing group of volunteers came together to host the first gift fair in Lancaster in 2008. And since then, more than $300,000 has been raised for inspiring nonprofit organizations in the Lancaster community and around the world, changing face of holiday gift-giving and sharing hope with those in need.

The original vision of the gift fair was to create an event where people can come together and make meaningful purchases to support the work of local and global nonprofits, and we are proud to have continued that vision for the past 12 years. And despite the challenges of 2020, we are committed as ever to providing a platform for our friends who work tirelessly in the face of the pandemic to fight extreme poverty, provide music lessons for children of incarcerated parents, eliminate homelessness, welcome refugees, care for the medically vulnerable, and so much more.

This year will look different, but we are excited for you to join us from the comfort of your own home on December 5, 2020, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to shop for gifts that give hope!

Giving hope now and always,

Jenn, Elyse, Janet, Jeanette, Lora, and Julie
GTGH Team Lancaster