THE Makers’ Market in Hamilton draws a crowd from across the region – and beyond - every Christmas season.

Coordinators, Morgan Morgan and Jess Frankel, are proud to say 90 artisans displayed their wares during the five weekdays leading up to Christmas.

A full third were first-time stallholders, of which Ms Morgan said, “it was fantastic”.

 “Our makers do a very broad range of things, whether they are makers, growers, or crafters,” she said.

“There was huge support from the community.”

The massive emphasis on bringing people together is clear.

Every stallholder donated an item to the community raffle, which raised over $2000 for other local initiatives.

“That went to a $500 Creative Arts Scholarship at Baimbridge College that’s been ongoing for a while,” Ms Morgan said.

This year, student, Danielle Knight, was the recipient.

“We also donated a really big trolley of food to Second Bite.”

Funds will also be donated to Better Together, the charity seeking to build an all-abilities playground in Hamilton, and Standing Tall, a youth mentorship program associated with many schools in the region.

The Hamilton Men’s Shed got “quite involved” making boot jacks and bat houses.

“Another thing we had was the Mitchell Park Kindergarten came in and did gift wrapping for a gold coin donation.

“The start of the market the last few years, you went in the draw to get a lucky door prize.

“The wonderful team at Tarrington Trees always donate one of their Christmas trees, a young girl from Heywood won that this year.”

Now the market has been running for many years, people know they can come to Hamilton in the festive season and find quality artisan products.

“Our customers come from everywhere, a lot of our customers are local mums,” she said.

“But we also get customers from all over the state.

“There is a group of older ladies who come from Colac every year in a minibus.

“People come from everywhere to come to the market, and they know now and they come every year.

“And obviously they come to our other boutique stores.”

And with 30 new makers this year, there was plenty to discover for the first time.

Ms Morgan does not find it hard to imagine why there were so many.

“They do all very much support each other; makers are some of our biggest customers as well because they appreciate the

time and effort and creativity and skills.

“They are often the first people to (say), ‘I’ll take that because I know it’s taken that person 12 hours to create.’”

Putting on such a big event is difficult though - both Ms Morgan and Ms Frankel take six weeks leave from their normal jobs to prepare for the five-day sales period.

One of the reasons they said they do it is because artists cannot always be customer-facing when the process of creating is so time-consuming.

“We just think it is so important to let our makers have an outlet for their beautiful goods,” Ms Morgan said.

“The market lets them showcase their goods without having to be there, we get to do that for them.”

Ms Morgan thanked their stallholders, the Hub, and their team of Helen, Naomi, Eve and Prue who made it all possible in the end.