By Amanda Estes

Staff Writer

When staring at your holiday shopping list this season, you could buy
dad another tie that will probably be relegated to the back of his
closet or you could pick up a handful of gift certificates for those
people who seem to have everything.

Katie Clark, however, has some alternative suggestions.

For dad, why not spend $11 and buy a “Rocket” stove for a Haitian
family, giving them an opportunity to cook rice and beans on a
fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly device? Why not donate $17
in grandma’s name to provide post-operative care for one Nepalese or
Tibetan woman or child undergoing cataract surgery? Closer to home,
donating $10 in your sister’s name could provide a clean bed for one
night for one person living in the U.S.  

As the new coordinator of the Alternative Gift Market at Southern Maine
Community College (SMCC), Clark, 24, is encouraging people to think
outside of the gift-wrapped box this holiday season.

The public is welcome to attend the alternative gift market from 10
a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 2 and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Monday,
Dec. 3 at SMCC’s Campus Center on Fort Road. There will be music and
food to put “shoppers” in the festive mood and fair trade crafts will
also be on sale so you can provide your loved ones with something
tangible, Clark said.

In its fifth year, SMCC’s alternative gift market is one of more than
500 markets around the world, all of which are coordinated by
Alternative Gifts International (AGI).

Currently headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, AGI is the brainchild of
Harriet Prichard, who was the director of Children’s Ministries at the
Pasadena Presbyterian Church in California in 1980, according to the
AGI Web site. Prichard organized a market through which the children
and adults could sell, as alternative gifts, much needed goods and
animals for people living all over the world.

“What I’m finding, thankfully, is that it already has a huge following,” said Clark during an interview at SMCC’s Campus Center.

Clark said faculty and staff, in search of unique gifts for nieces and
nephews, had already begun inquiring about this year’s market.

A Boise, Idaho native, Clark found her way to the East Coast to attend
Bates College in Lewiston and hasn’t been able to leave since
graduating in 2006. Taking advantage of opportunities to travel abroad
during her academic career, Clark made treks to France, Germany and
Madagascar.

“That experience was something that I’m still working through,” Clark
said of the Madagascar trip. “It was a difficult semester.”

Clark said she spent the first part of the trip attending classes and
meeting people while living with a host family in the capital city of
Antananarivo. She spent the last four months of the semester in the
southern region of the country, looking at a Canadian mining company’s
planned extraction and development scheme and the potential effects on
the environment and the local people.

She said it was difficult to realize when she returned to the more
comfortable lifestyle she has been afforded,  life would still go
on as it was in Madagascar.

After returning to her native country, Clark decided she could be of service stateside.

“I decided I don’t want to go abroad just to go abroad,” she said. “I’d rather spend some time in my own community.”

As a representative from the Maine Campus Compact VISTA (Volunteers in
Service to America) program, known as MCC VISTAs, Clark is immersing
herself in the SMCC environment 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a
year.  The MCC VISTA program is the local component of Americorps
VISTA, a national program of volunteers serving low-income communities.


During her year of service, Clark is not allowed to work or take
classes. Instead, she is focused on developing relationships with
students, faculty, staff and community partners with an aim of
eliminating poverty and improving access to college for low income
people.

Clark said MCC VISTAs maintains “access to higher education leads to higher paying jobs.”

“It’s all about just getting myself in – what is needed and what can I do,” she said.

On any given day, Clark might be meeting with English as a Second
Language (ESL) students, offering tutoring sessions, or organizing
campus visits for South Portland High School students.

With roughly 70 international students and 600 multicultural students
enrolled at SMCC last fall, the campus is a prime location to host a
market of gifts for international recipients.  

MCC VISTA’s Anna Patkus established SMCC’s alternative gift market, Clark said.

AGI’s “shopping list for the world” consists of 34 projects, administered by more than 50 non-profit agencies in 24 countries.

Clark said AGI maintains strict criteria and only partners with
legitimate organizations. With low overhead costs – roughly 10 percent
– Clark said donations are not lost in some “administrative sinkhole.”

Browsing through an AGI catalog is disconcerting as its photographs
capture the faces of people living in the world’s worst conditions.
Accompanying each face, however, is an organization with volunteers on
the ground and a breakdown of funds to show what each donation can
accomplish.

In Peru, Lutheran World Relief is helping families improve dairy
farming practices to increase their incomes. A $10 donation could buy
one share of a refrigeration unit for a family living in the
mountainous Chota district. The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International
program employs anti-poaching and gorilla tracking staff in Rwanda, who
patrol the national parks and monitor the health of the gorillas. A $16
donation could provide two days of food for one anti-poaching patrol.

The alternative gifts help people as far away as Indonesia, but also
benefit those living in the U.S. A $12 donation, for example, is enough
to provide career counseling for one woman in the U.S. With a $7
donation, AGI and its 10 partner hunger relief agencies will provide
food for one individual in the U.S. for one day.

For more information about this year’s alternative gift market at SMCC,
please call Katie Clark at 741-5547. Anyone who cannot attend the
market can receive a free catalog by calling 1-800-842-2243 or by
visiting www.alternativegifts.org.