The Round Square Office at King’s Academy organized its eighth annual Winter Holiday Bazaar on Wednesday with around 16 vendors presenting a colorful display of products and handicrafts for sale to the school community. The bazaar, which was held in the Gallery, aims to support local businesses as well as a number of charitable organizations and individual initiatives. These included Bait Al Liqa, Collateral Repair Project, The Orenda Tribe, Remember Me - which sells handmade dolls to support education for refugee children, and “Min Alam Ila Alam” (from pain to pen) that turns used epi-pens into ink pens which are sold to raise money for insulin injections for children who can’t afford them.

One stall raising money for various charities and service projects featured handmade items made by King’s faculty, including Chemistry teacher Lara Al Masri who took the opportunity to support the Round Square initiative Kursi wa Kitab by selling her handcrafted soaps, with the profits being donated to buy a wheelchair for a child with cerebral palsy.

Al Masri has been making soap as long as she has been a chemist, she says. She started out making soap at home for her daughters, using only natural ingredients and essential oils. Making soap is a traditional part of Arab family life and culture, according to Al Masri, who says the soap-making process is also therapeutic and a great way to reconnect with nature. After perfecting her art, she began selling her soap on her Instagram page “Bas Saboon” and last year taught King’s students how to make soap and other products through the Soap Making co-curricular. Earlier this year, students sold handmade soaps, candles, teas and body scrubs to raise money for a wheelchair. This is the first year Al Masri sells her soaps at the bazaar to raise money for one of the school’s service projects and says it is important to her “to give back to King’s.”