This Mother’s Day weekend, more than 100 vendors will converge in White Plaza to participate in Spring Faire, the annual fine arts and crafts festival benefiting the Bridge Peer Counseling Center. The nonprofit provides the Stanford Community with a 24-hour counseling hotline, as well as information services and workshops.

Fine arts displays will include pottery, glasswork, painting, photography, jewelry and sculpture. Crafts will include woodwork, clothing, soap, skin care and handbags. Local musicians and dancers will provide entertainment as 12 food stands will provide fairgoers’ staples such as cotton candy and hot dogs.

“This fair is outside, it has entertainment — it’s a delightful show to do in comparison to many street fairs,” said Allen Burgi, a Stanford alumnus and five-time returning vendor at the Faire. “It’s very enjoyable. We have the whole plaza, we have the entertainment, and we have the places to eat. Everything is right there.”

“Many of the artists come because they enjoy the venue and the campus,” said Shirin Golkar, head coordinator for this year’s Spring Faire and a live-in counselor at the Bridge. “A good number of them are Stanford alumni and they support the Bridge and enjoy the laid-back atmosphere of the Faire.”

Burgi and his collaborators make candles and soaps of olive oil, palm oil, coconut oil and plant oils like lavender. The handmade soaps are packaged in old fruit boxes and sell for $3.75 each. His products are typical of the crafts at the Spring Faire, which only showcases handcrafted goods made by the vendors themselves.

“The Faire has grown into a well-respected fine arts and crafts gathering, and it is competitive to get into,” said Golkar. “We have a jury who reviews photos of the artists’ work in order to determine who gets into the fair. The more creative and labor-intensive the artist’s work is, the more likely it is for the vendor to get into the Faire.”

Arts and crafts vendors pay $270 for a 10-by-10-foot booth. Food vendors must shell out $320 for the same space, and chairs and tables are available at additional cost.

According to Golkar, the Stanford Spring Faire is one of the West Coast’s longest-running fine arts and crafts fairs. The arts and the Bridge Peer Counseling Center have been connected for decades, he said.

“When it was founded in 1971, the Bridge fostered a counter-cultural community, and it attracted hippies and artists,” Golkar said. “The Faire started as a festival for people to express their creativity; it was a celebration of the community and of art. Gradually the Faire developed and built itself a reputation, so subsequent generations have been able to use this momentum to continue the Faire as a successful fundraising endeavor.”

In the months leading up to the Faire, selected Bridge staff work hard to generate publicity and attract vendors. A letter sent out to prospective vendors states that the Faire’s publicity budget was increased by 50 percent this year, allowing for extensive local flyering, posters, banners, newspaper ads and postcards for every Stanford faculty and staff member.

“We try our best to make the Faire successful because we want our vendors and their customers to keep returning to the Faire,” Golkar said. “The Bridge needs the Faire’s financial support to continue running. We also want the Faire to maintain its reputation as a well-respected fine arts and crafts festival.”

Spring Faire is the Bridge Peer Counseling Center’s only fundraiser. Each year, the Bridge raises about $30,000 from the Faire, enough to cover its operating costs. Funds are split evenly between the center’s budget and the cost of holding the following year’s Spring Faire.

“By raising our own money, we can avoid a lot of bureaucratic restrictions that would otherwise be placed on us,” Golkar said.

The Bridge’s profit goes toward the phone services, outreach projects like stress management workshops and publicity that allow the peer counseling center to serve the Stanford community.

Fair attendees may also reap a few unexpected benefits.

“Our top seller in the Stanford/Los Altos area is the La Champa Sandalwood stress candle, made of three leading Indian incense fragrances,” Burgi said. “It’s interesting that Stanford students go for the stress-relieving candles.”

Interested students can get more information about the Faire and some past participants at http://springfaire.stanford.edu.