Now that Halloween is over, the Christmas shopping season is commencing in Vicksburg with a jewelry and accessory sale benefiting local students looking to enter the medical field.

The Masquerade Jewelry and Accessories Sale kicked off Wednesday and will continue Thursday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Merit Health River Region Medical Center in conference rooms C and D.

“It’s a great place to do Christmas shopping,” sale coordinator Sandy Lewis said.

All items are $5, and cash and credit cards are accepted.

“We have gifts for men and women and we have a lot of accessories, not necessarily just jewelry,” auxiliary president Gale Waites said. “We even have stuff for children.”

Gloves, socks, tweezers, pins and other accessories and gifts are available for purchase at the sale.

“It’s all kinds of jewelry, hats, scarves, leggings,” Lewis said. “We have some little phone chargers, lanterns for emergency light, watches, bags.”

The hospital’s auxiliary has been putting on the sale for the past 11 and a half years each April and November. The products come from Masquerade, a hospital auxiliary fundraising company.

Revenue from the biannual event goes to the Joe and Feeney Elliot Scholarship Fund. The scholarship is given to eight students total — two from each, Porters Chapel Academy, St. Aloysius, Vicksburg and Warren Central high schools. The applicants must be high school seniors going to college with aspirations of entering the medical field to be considered for the scholarship.

The amount of the scholarship varies each year based on the total made from the fundraiser. The only money that goes into the scholarship is from the sale.

“The amount we give each student depends on how well we do at the jewelry sale,” Waites said.

The auxiliary has received notes from past scholarship recipients thanking them for having the scholarship available to local students and letting them know the impact the money had on their education.

“We’ve had students come back before to tell us how much they appreciated it and they might not have gone to that first semester if they hadn’t had that money,” Waites said.