Alternative Market

In November of each year, the Church holds an alternative market. For 2022, we will have information tables with opportunities to give donations in someone’s name as a Christmas gift. Some of the organizations will be bringing cards, wreaths, or other items.

• Ferncliff – The Ferncliff Alternative Gift Catalog is filled with a variety of options to choose from to satisfy the interests of all ages. Ferncliff’s Alternative Gift Catalog highlights some of Ferncliff’s greatest needs this holiday season. You can support Ferncliff and give a gift that keeps on giving
• Heifer International
  Heifer’s mission is to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth by giving families a source of food, animals, rather than short-term relief. As people share their animals’ offspring with others, along with their knowledge, resources, and skills, an expanding network of hope, dignity, and self-reliance is created that reaches around the globe.
  • Give a gift of animals to help families become self-reliant.
• SERRV International: A Greater Gift
  SERRV is a nonprofit fair trade and development organization. Our mission is to eradicate poverty wherever it resides. SERRV works with thousands of small-scale artisans and farmers in Africa, Asia, Latin America and other developing regions of the world by marketing their handcrafts and foods. Through our work with 75 community-based organizations in 36 countries, we create economic opportunity so these artisans and farmers can support their families and themselves. In addition to purchasing and marketing products, we work with our partners to give them tools to work their way out of poverty, including product design, training, information and technical assistance.
  • Buy handicrafts and food products through the SERRV website.

• Life Styles
  Life Styles is a local organization supporting adults with developmental disabilities. Supported employment, supported living services, and advocacy combine with educational services to help provide the best life experiences for clients.

• Canopy NWA
  Canopy NWA is a refugee resettlement organization working with refugees from all over the world. Welcoming these newcomers to Northwest Arkansas and helping them to become integrated into the local community is the focus. FUPC has a sponsoring team currently working with a refugee family from Guatemala.
• 7hills
  7hills works to provide transitions for homeless people into temporary and long-term living situations. They provide case management to help meet needs from haircuts to daytime shelter, clothing, and food.
• Circles
  Circles NWA works with individuals to overcome poverty and grow toward economic stability. FUPC has a support team within Circles. This is a national organization with a proven track record. “After 18 months, those in the program achieve an average 71% increase in their income,” the website reports, “and they experience an increase in the number of people they can call on for support.” Using social capital and sharing knowledge, allies help individuals and families rise out of poverty.
• CEO
  Cooperative Emergency Outreach is a group of local churches working together to help provide emergency assistance for people living in Northwest Arkansas. CEO can help with food, prescriptions, emergency help with rent and utilities, and other short-term needs. FUPC takes a regular collection for CEO during worship services, and many members of our congregation volunteer with the organization.

• Community Clinic
  Community Clinic has 15 locations in Northwest Arkansas, providing low cost and no-cost healthcare including primary care, pediatric care, prenatal, behavioral, and physical therapy. The clinics provide services in English, Spanish, and Marshallese. FUPC helps to support this essential program.

• Family Network
  Family Network provides parenting education and family support for families in Northwest Arkansas. Accredited by Healthy Families America, they focus on home visits, working one on one with parents who need extra support.

• Peace at Home
  Peach at Home was the first domestic violence shelter in the state of Arkansas. Now, they offer a 24-hour crisis hotline, emergency shelter, legal services, support groups, counseling, and housing assistance programs. They have been able to assist over 1,000 individuals in leaving dangerous home situations and settling into safe living arrangements.
• New Beginnings
  New Beginnings is a program designed to help homeless individuals to find permanent housing. The facilities are composed of twenty individual cabins and one communal “community center” containing a commercial kitchen, shower house, laundry service, and meeting space. A fenced perimeter, 24-hour security system, and on-duty overnight personnel ensure the community is safe. A participatory management model engages program participants in the governance of the community and the care of the facilities.The program is single-mindedly focused on equipping participants to acquire housing. Staff members are experts on local housing resources and facilitate daily workshops on re-housing opportunities. Case Managers develop a personal housing plan with each participant and provide one on one assistance to accomplish housing-focused tasks. The program offers financial assistance to overcome common housing barriers and temporary housing stability support when an individual obtains a new home. Participants are required to actively work on their re-housing goals in order to remain in the program.
• Vera Lloyd – The organization provides the only Presbyterian children and family residential homes in Arkansas and northern Louisiana. We are accredited through the Council on Accreditation and maintains a commitment to excellence through its Continuous Quality Improvement Program. We are one of the first childcare facilities in the state to use the Texas Christian University Institute of Child Development Trust-based Relational Intervention model of care, which incorporates recent neuroscience research to help children heal from trauma.