The non-profit Dysart Development Corporation (DDC) will host the community’s 51st annual Dysart Bazaar, Saturday, November 12, 2022. Open to the public at no charge, the event features a wide variety of artists selling their exclusive handmade crafts and homemade baked goods at the handicapped-accessible Dysart Community Building, at 418 Main Street, from 9:00 a.m.to 1:00 p.m. The event drew capacity crowds of shoppers and exclusively hand-crafted items last year, and is set to be another popular destination.

“The Dysart Development Corporation welcomes everyone looking for original, handmade items to make Christmas shopping easy, and to prepare for Thanksgiving gatherings by making Dysart your destination on November 12,” said the DDC’s Rhonda Lassen. “Take in the Dysart Holiday Bazaar and also check out the shops downtown, as you and your friends and family enjoy a unique shopping experience and excellent values to prepare for the holidays,” she said.

Dysart Holiday Bazaar shoppers can select from a variety of original, handmade art, ranging from seasonal Santas, snowmen, greenery, Christmas trees and angels, or fall decorations to stylish home décor, jewelry, accessories and more.

Whether you are shopping for gifts for toddlers to teens to senior citizens, you’ll find a wide variety of items from which to choose. For babies, cute clothing like onesies, bracelets, bows, blankets, teddy bears, and crocheted creations will be offered for sale. Choose from holiday decorations like wreaths, accents made from vintage repurposed items, signs, and other accessories to decorate your own home inside and out, or to give as gifts, or to for memorials to loved ones.

To warm up cold hands during the winter, opt for wool sweaters recycled into mittens, or durable and stylish rag rugs to help take the chill off of cold floors. Choose from embroidered towels, etched glassware, stained glass, pottery, and laser-engraved wood crafts for a gift for yourself or others.

Looking to accent your personal style? Shop for handmade earrings, bracelets or other jewelry.

Hosting guests for the holidays or just don’t have time or don’t care to cook? Relax. Shop for homemade baked goods including artisan breads baked by the non-profit Vison Dysart volunteers, or choose from other tasty treats prepared by exhibitors like jams, rolls, cookies, and more to satisfy your sweet tooth.

Volunteers from Dysart’s Little Knights Daycare Dysart campus will serve delicious foods for sale including the event’s famous turkey pasta salad, walking tacos, pulled pork sandwiches, pie and more, with proceeds benefitting the community daycare center that opened in Dysart in 2018.

Dysart’s Fine Arts Women’s Club started the popular holiday event, led in subsequent years by volunteer leaders representing the Dysart Development Corporation, Dwayne Luze and Don Lyons. Lyons retired from the event management role when his longtime co-chair, Dwayne Luze, passed away on April 1, 2021.

That’s when DDC Chair Rhonda Lassen, together with cards crafter Tammy Freemon, of Dysart, and rural Dysart native and artist Kathy Krafka Harkema, teamed up in 2021 to lead the event. The three area women continue to volunteer to coordinate the popular holiday event and host this year’s festivities.

Only a few vendor spaces remain, so anyone interested in applying to sell handmade goods may email their request to, or request an application by mail at: dysartdev@gmail.com. Exhibitors pay $35 per space, with proceeds from the event benefitting scholarships for LaPorte City and Dysart area Union high school students.

Those wishing to volunteer to help with event preparation and day-of-festivities can email dysartdev@gmail.com, and include their name, contact phone number and email. Volunteers are needed to assist with event set-up November 11, and to help support event coordination November 12, including assisting exhibitors with unloading, loading, and greeting visitors.

For more information about the Dysart Development Corporation, visit: https://www.discoverdysart.org