Does your brother — you know, the guy who has everything — really want that tie you're thinking about getting him for Christmas?

Oh sure, he'll tell you he loves it and then, like the argyle sweater you got him last year and the World's Greatest Brother coffee mug from the year before that, it will go in the closet — or worse yet, the storage area he rents — never to see the light of day again.

We have lots of stuff and at Christmas, we get more stuff.

But maybe some of the people you give gifts to really don't want more stuff. Maybe you don't want to give them more stuff. Maybe you want to give them a donation in their name to a charity or nonprofit organization — a gift that keeps giving.

Then the Alternative Gift Fair, taking place Saturday at the Farm and Home Center, is for you.

About 30 non-profit organizations will be participating, offering all kinds of gifts, from a flock of chickens ($20) to shoes and school supplies for AIDS orphans in Kenya ($25), to a monthly RRTA bus pass for a refugee family with no car ($45).

"Each non-profit has chosen three gift items, in the small, medium and large price range," explains Jenn Knepper, who organized the gift fair and is a member of The Ladies Half, a group in the Harrisburg area that held its second annual alternative gift fair last Saturday. "We've got a nice mix of about 20 local and 10 international non-profit organizations."

Generally, prices range from the $10 to $20 range, and then from the $20 to $40 range and then, above $40.

And Knepper says the nice thing is you can personalize the gift.

Maybe someone is really interested in gardening, so you can give them a gift from the Threshold Foundation, a local organization that gets kids involved in gardening. For $15 your gift will provide seven packs of seeds. For $150, a child can participate in a week of the "Dig It" program.

Maybe someone in your life has been touched by cancer. For $600, the top price at the fair, Celebration for Life will send a child with cancer to summer camp.

A musician might especially appreciate a gift to Music for Everyone, such as sponsoring a repair for a stringed instrument for $45 or the purchase of a hand percussion instrument for $15.

And dollars go far in many international organizations.

It only takes $10 to provide 83 meals for a child in Haiti or Jamaica from The Cookie Sale to Combat World Hunger. Only $8 will provide an orphan child a pillow and blanket in Haiti from Hold the Children. You can buy a share of a sheep or a goat for $10 from Heifer International, or a share in a heifer for $50.

And for $10, Floresta will plant ten trees for a poor rural family.

 Knepper, a nurse at Hershey Medical Center, said she started giving these kinds of gifts several years ago.

"I began to realize the older I got, the more annoying Christmas was becoming with all the commercialism," she says.

The fair will be more than just shopping. There will be music, from groups like the Don Randall Bluegrass Experience, Cold Springs Road and Jealous Moon. Vendors will be selling food with an international flair, from places like Morocco, Italy, Uganda and Vietnam.

And kids will have activities to keep them busy while you shop.

Each gift will include a card, with an explanation of the gift and the organization.

Knepper decided to do the alternative gift fair after reading about the one held last year in the Harrisburg area.

"I thought, there's no reason we can't do this in Lancaster," she says. "We set up a meeting in January and things began evolving. It was like a slow moving snowball that gained more and more momentum."

If you can't make it to the gift fair, you can go on line to www.theladieshalf.org, where a shopping list with all the organizations will be listed. You'll be able to purchase things once the gift fair opens.

Gifts That Give
Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Free

Lancaster Farmand Home Center1383 Arcadia Road

201-9157
www.theladieshalf.org/giftsthatgive.html