Band teacher Brad Balog said that he has been in charge of planning the Marketplace Craft fair with other parents since 2001.

Together, the the Marketplace Craft Fair is a fundraiser for the Lafayette band programs which goes to everyone in that program including the Concert Band, Jazz Band, Marching Band, Winter Guard, etc.

“The bulk of the money comes from the sales of the spaces. Basically, for a vendor to come in, they have to rent the space from us and that’s really where all the money comes from. We also have concession stands and do auctions throughout the day,” Balog said.

Together, the Lancer Regiment will help with welcoming all 160 vendors, moving them in and out, cleaning up and serving them food.

Although Balog does not often appear at the craft fair, he said that his favorite part about it is seeing the support the fair gets.

“[I like] watching it year after year and seeing our band families and community come together to support the students in the program and just see the work that goes into it,” Balog said.

Amongst all the businesses that will be promoting and selling their products, sophomore Sakhi Lal is using this annual event as an opportunity to promote and officially debut her nonprofit organization called Serving the Seniors.

“It’s a nonprofit to help elderly people in our local community. We mainly focus on going to senior homes, but we also go to elderly homes in our neighborhoods just to help them out. We also host funds for elders to raise money and forward it to senior homes so they can get better resources for themselves,” Lal said.

Lal, the founder and president of STS, with her co-president sophomore Michelle Chen created the nonprofit in September.

“We wanted to start the organization as a way to bring back the work that we did in 6th grade by helping out places like the Anthology senior living homes. Sakhi has also since worked as a volunteer there so we were looking to find a way to expand that to more people,” Chen said.

Originally, Lal wanted STS to be a club but later decided to turn it into an organization.

“Since [STS is] more of a volunteer-based club, it really fits under Key Club and we didn’t want to be a part of Key Club, we wanted us to be our own club, so we just decided to make a nonprofit instead of making a club at school,” Lal said.

Lal hopes that during the craft fair, she will be able to interest students in joining her organization and help STS grow in members. One of her big goals for the craft fair is to gain as many new members as possible and to promote her organization’s initiative.

“We don’t have a lot of members and it would be a lot better if we got more. So it’s great just getting my organization’s name out there. But it’s also great for the fact that there will be so many students from Lafayette. I know there will be people to support me there,” Lal said.

Chen added that through this organization, not only will she help the elderly but also give an opportunity for students at Lafayette to engage more with others in their community and gain volunteering experience.

Other than promoting her organization, Lal plans to make a good profit selling various types of desserts. The STS treasurer Kristina Boniface handles all the finances and decides where the money will be donated. She has already decided what they will sell specifically and where the money is going to go after the craft fair.

“For this craft fair, we’re selling macaroons, decorated cookies and plain cookies. I think that the decorated cookies will be the best sellers. [We will also be] donating this money to the Cardinal Senior Service Center,” Boniface said.

Boniface said she hopes to make at least $1,500 from their booth.

While Lal thinks that the craft fair will give STS more attention, she wants to expand her organization even more in the future.

“Our future plan is just to make it really big in the St. Louis community, [right now] we are very small and we want to make it really big,” She said.

Lal is already planning on making her organization a bigger project in the future but the first step for her is to get new members to join STS and to make money selling desserts through the craft fair.

“Our biggest goal [for the fair] and in the future is just to get more people, more members and just make it a bigger organization and gain better funding for it,” Lal said.