Penn State students and faculty can avoid traveling across the globe for unique and inexpensive holiday gifts this season -- they can just walk over to 410 Boucke for handwoven grass baskets from Bangladesh, wooden maracas from Peru and Onyx candleholders from Pakistan.

This week, the Faculty Staff Club and International Programs office have teamed up to bring a Ten Thousand Villages sale to University Park. Ten Thousand Villages is an organization that buys indigenous crafts from Third World countries at fair trade prices, said Penn State International Program Public Affairs Coordinator Janet Haner.

This is the first year the international office is holding the event, which is intended to raise money for Penn State students studying abroad.

"You can send all of [the money raised], but in our case, we're keeping 10 percent for a study-abroad scholarship," Haner said.

The scholarship money will be placed as an endowment fund in honor of Janis Jacobs, former education vice provost, who died of breast cancer Sept. 16, Haner said.

The Ten Thousand Villages sale was held two weeks ago during International Education Week. Because not everything was sold, Haner said, they decided to extend the sale.

"If we sell everything, we will make $1,000 ... right now we need a lot more people to buy," she said.

Flavia Lucas, international programs staff assistant, who is volunteering with the sale, said most people who come in to look at the merchandise end up buying something.

"Most people want Christmas gifts to then ship across the country," Lucas said.

The items are rather inexpensive to be sold at fair trade prices, Haner said.

The display table had an array of items from many foreign countries, including different types of beaded jewelry from Kenya's Spice Coast.

Stephen Beckerman, associate professor of anthropology, said he was looking to get Christmas gifts for his family.

"They're all intriguing little things," Beckerman said.

He added that he finds giving presents from foreign countries to be more interesting.

Lucas said that mostly international students are buying items from the sale, and some students even buy gifts from their home country.

The sale also offers many decoration items for the holidays, such as palm leaf garlands crafted by women in Bangladesh and colorful studded tree ornaments from Vietnam.

While they do not gift wrap the items, Lucas said, they do give customers the box or the bag that specific item came in, with a tag of where the item is from and how it was made.