HANOVER — After nearly four decades, this season’s Christmas Market with a Difference will be the last.

The market — which features handmade items from around the world — was started in 1987 by members of the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College in downtown Hanover.

In the decades since, more than $1.6 million has been raised for nonprofit organizations, both in the Upper Valley and abroad, according to the market committee’s co-chair, Gail McPeek.

“To keep one thing going for 36 years is pretty impressive,” McPeek said in a phone interview last week. “It was a difficult decision to make.”

This year’s Christmas Market with a Difference is scheduled to take place later this week from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday at 40 College St. in Hanover. More information can be found at ccdcucc.org.

The decision to discontinue the market was made for multiple reasons, including a decrease in customers, participating organizations and volunteers. Last year, around 500 people attended over the course of two days, which was less than half of the peek attendance of roughly 1,200 in 2017 over the course of three days. Additionally, there used to be around 100 volunteers who helped every year and now there are about half that.

“I think primarily it’s because of the difficulty in recruiting committee members to help organize the market, with volunteers to staff the market,” Emily Dentzer, market committee co-chair, said in a phone interview last week with McPeek. “It’s less of a whole church event than it used to be. Everyone in the church used to be involved in one way or another.”

The decision is also a result of data that shows declining sales: In 2019, attendees spent $78,822 at the market and in 2021 — the first year back after COVID — sales had dropped to $51,302, according to numbers Dentzer provided. In 2022, only 11 organizations were able to participate and sales totaled $41,767.

Another reason is that consumers’ shopping habits have changed. When Jean Sibley helped found the market in the late 1980s, online shopping didn’t exist. The organizations — including the knitting cooperatives that Sibley founded along with Hyun Hee Shin in Korea, Nepal and the Upper Valley — did not have many markets for their goods, including hand-knit sweaters. At the time, Sibley had approached church outreach board members about selling the sweaters after Sunday services.

“Others on the board very quickly started to think of other opportunities for helping groups that were nonprofits that were helping to give employment to people around the world and also in this country,” Sibley recalled in a phone interview last week. “Very quickly, the market formed.”

Volunteers were easy to come by, and the number of participating organizations grew. Like other nonprofit organizations, the group saw a shift during the years of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the market went online and in 2021, it returned as a two-day event, instead of three because of the lack of volunteers. The number of vendors also has declined: There used to be around 20, and this year there will be 14.

“Almost all of the nonprofits that participate and have participated in the last five to 10 years all often have their own online shopping abilities,” McPeek said. “People can go directly to their websites and purchase their goods year-round.”

The vendors keep all of the proceeds from the items they sell; the church does not take any of the profits. Information about the vendors and organizations will remain on the church’s website, McPeek said. Other than that, committee members are unsure if they will try to host a future holiday market.

McPeek, Dentzer and Sibley are viewing this last Christmas Market with a Difference as a celebration of all that has been accomplished over the last 36 years.

“My mantra these days is that everything has a beginning and a middle and an end and that includes everything you could think of in nature, including each of us, but also institutions, even nations, organizations, most anything,” Sibley said. “Our beginning was exciting and fun and successful. Our middle was beyond anything we could have imagined at the beginning. It was marvelous. And now for various reasons it seems it’s time for the ending.”

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.