While some people make Valentine’s Day plans with their significant other weeks in advance, busy lives and a chaotic world can make it easy for others to forget entirely about the upcoming festivity. However, people looking to buy a gift for the Hallmark-themed holiday could be in luck soon.

The 2nd annual Love is in the Air Bazaar is set to commence in McCleary Saturday, Feb. 4. The Valentine’s Day-themed bazaar, which will be hosted by the McCleary Veterans of Foreign Wars, will feature 20 vendors with products ranging from sublimation, crochet, resin products, handcrafted jewelry and woodworking, among other things. There will also be a raffle as well as a fundraising table for the Bear Festival — McCleary’s largest annual event.

“This year we have almost double the vendors we had last year since that was our first year doing it and the advertising wasn’t quite on point nor was the weather anywhere decent enough to make people get out and come,” said Holly Pierce, the lead organizer of the bazaar. “Now that we’ve had time to promote it more with our wooden signs around McCleary, we’re hoping to get the same amount of attendance we saw for the Christmas bazaar.”

Like the Christmas bazaar, the nature of these events is to help raise funds to upkeep the McCleary VFW Hall, which has served as a local gathering joint for veterans and the community within the small rural town since 1954. Pierce said while any amount of money raised from the bazaar is appreciated, reaching the goal of $1,000 would be “amazing.”

“The next (repair) that really needs to be done is to replace the flooring in the side hall hopefully this spring so we can focus on repainting the inside of the main building this summer,” Pierce said. “Yeah, it’s a fundraiser for the VFW but at the same time instead of supporting big box stores, people can come and shop from small local businesses, some of which are veteran-owned, and help the little guy.”

Contact Reporter Allen Leister at 360-463-3572 or allen.leister@thedailyworld.com