The AYLUS Great Neck branch participated once again in the Great Neck Park District Farmers market on October 4th, 2026 for the 19th time this year.
The farmers market began at 9am, but some of our volunteers got to Firefighters park to set up at 8:30am, setting up the tent, moving the tables, and arranging the items for sale in a pleasing way. The items included a cute assortment of crochet animals once again. These included octopuses, penguins, ducks, and rabbits, some of which were made into keychains. Also in the setup were bracelets, earrings, scarfs and other crochet crafts such as bags or phone holders. Other parts of the stall included face painting, balloon animals and ring toss with a chance of winning a prize.
As the event ran from 9-1, the work was split into 2 shifts of 2 hours each. Each shift included people who focused on being cashiers, calculating profits and noting them for future reference; on-site crocheters producing more goods during the farmers market; face painters in charge of painting creative designs on customers; ring toss managers explaining the rules of the game; and balloon makers who made balloon products on request.
Overall, the farmers market was once again a success for AYLUS, with volunteers powering through any issues that arose, including a sudden light rain. The sale of crochet items and the face painting drew a lot of participation, as always. The keychains really stood out among the crochet products, with an apple keychain and a penguin keychain being bought by customers. Customers also bought a large strawberry crochet plush and a penguin plushie. For the face painting, superhero designs stood out to the kids and were requested by the clients. The balloon animals – which were made on the spot by volunteers – were loved by everyone who visited the farmers’ market, especially the balloon toy swords. A balloon flower was also given to the musician singing and playing guitar at the scene, who contributed to the calm and peaceful environment of the afternoon with his relaxing vocals.
The majority of the profits from selling handcrafted and other items will be donated to the nonprofit Adventures in Learning, which helps underprivileged students and children with care, enrichment, literacy, math, and more.
Reporter: Isabelle Yang
Volunteers: Isabelle Yang 4.75 hrs, Keyan Fan 0.5 hrs, Alivia You 4.5 hrs, Chloe Wang 4.5 hrs, Jayden Liu 4.5 hrs, Austin Jiang 4.25 hrs, Catherine Tao 2 hrs, Elaine Xing 2 hrs, Giselle Lin 4.75 hrs, Christina Pan 2.25 hrs, William Pan 2.25 hrs, Yiqing Lu 2.5 hrs, Rainie Cheng 4 hrs+4 hrs home crochet, Jinxing Rui 2 hrs+6 hrs home crochet, Isla Zeng 6 hrs home crochet, Shiyi Ji 8 hrs home crochet
