Annapolis Friends Meeting’s Quaker Markets are community-building events that raise
funds for causes that are Quaker and/or align with Quaker testimonies of simplicity, peace,
integrity, community, equality and stewardship (SPICES). Quaker testimonies guide the
entire Quaker Market process of beneficiary selection, collection of donations, Market
preparations, relying on shoppers to pay a fair price for most items we offer, and working
hard to connect items that don’t sell with partner organizations that can put them to good
use. Quaker Markets are held annually, on the first Saturdays of December and May. New
beneficiaries are discerned for each Quaker Market. Our Young Friends conduct their own
discernment process to determine beneficiaries for $250 of the proceeds. For Quaker
Holiday Market 2024, the remainder of the proceeds will be split evenly across the
following four causes:
Anne Arundel Connecting Together (ACT) is a non-partisan, interfaith, multi-racial,
cross-class network of 18 congregations and community groups in Anne Arundel County.
ACT’s work is based on: listening to each other in one-on-one conversations, house
meetings, and listening sessions; building relationships of trust across differences;
researching the best solutions to the problems faced by neighborhoods; building power
and acting together to change communities for the better; and reflecting and evaluating to
learn from past work and plan for the future. In the past five years, ACT has won
campaigns on issues related to fair and safe housing, gun safety, and educational equity.
The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) advances equity and cultural
knowledge, focusing on the power of arts and collaboration to strengthen Native
communities and promote positive social change with American Indian, Native Hawaiian,
and Alaska Native peoples in the United States. Their SHIFT – Transformative Change
and Indigenous Arts program supports artist and community-driven projects responding to
social change issues through a Native lens, providing multi-year services that allow artists
to consider more expansive projects and broad-based platforms for community
engagement and presentation. Their LIFT – Early Career Support for Native
Artists program provides invaluable support to early career Native artists with one-year
awards to develop and realize new projects. NACF Board Chair & U.S. Poet Laureate, Joy
Harjo (Mvskoke), explains the importance of art in this way, "I was taught that our arts
carry the spirit of the people. It is through art that we know ourselves. It’s through art into
the world and it is through art cultures will be remembered." It is particularly apt for
Friends to work to help restore the cultural heritages we once mistakenly sought to destroy
within Native children in boarding schools under Friends’ care.
https://www.nativeartsandcultures.org/.
Operation Warm is a national nonprofit that manufactures high-quality coats for children
in need. They partner with individuals, community organizations, and corporations across
North America to provide emotional warmth, confidence to socialize and succeed, and
hope of a brighter future through the gift of a brand-new coat. In 2023, every student at
Tyler Heights Elementary School in Annapolis was able to pick out a new warm coat for
the winter, in their choice of style and color, and in a size to last them through the winter,
bringing great joy to students and their teachers alike. Friends may enjoy watching the
short video that AACPS made about the coat give-away at Tyler Heights last October
FedEx Cares, Operation Warm – Tyler Heights Elementary School. We felt drawn to
support Operation Warm based on this firsthand knowledge of what the organization was
able to accomplish at Tyler Heights Elementary, where the need of children for warm
winter coats was fulfilled in a way that brought the children joy and normalized the
process, since every child received a coat. Although Operation Warm is a national
organization, we have confirmed that a donation from QHM proceeds could be directed
locally, for example to a school in Annapolis or Baltimore.
https://www.operationwarm.org/
FWCC Climate Emergency Fund (https://fwcc.world/cef/) provides short term funding
to projects presented by members of Quaker meetings and yearly meetings, especially
those in the Global South experiencing the immediate impacts of the climate crisis, such as
floods, landslides, drought and other forms of extreme weather. Grants are designed to
support small-scale or emergency projects, rather than large-scale projects, and should not
be used to pay administrative expenses such as rent, salaries or utilities. Aid may be used
to support members of the constituent body or neighbors in need. There is a rigorous
application process, and applicants are required to submit a report of how the funds were
used, within a year.
For some additional background on FWCC, the Friends World Committee for
Consultation was set up in 1937 at the Second World Conference of Friends. It established
as its purpose “to act in a consultative capacity to promote better understanding among
Friends the world over, particularly by the encouragement of joint conferences and inter
visitation, the collection and circulation of information about Quaker literature and other
activities directed towards that end.” It has a world office in London, and four other
offices: the Africa section, in Nairobi, Kenya; the Asia and west Pacific Section, based in
Australia; the Europe and Middle East Section, in Birmingham, England; and the Section
of the Americas, based in Philadelphia. Their purpose is to provide information and
awareness to Quakers, to build relationships among all branches of Quakerism, and to
promote fellowship and community.