For several years, the Garland Business District held its Garland Summer Market in the Gathering House parking lot.
The markets featured locally made art, locally grown produce, food trucks, live music and representatives from area organizations meeting and greeting members of the community.
When the business district decided to close the summer market, they gave the folks at the Gathering House an opportunity to host a market of their own. The group reached out to a few local creatives and business owners, but with so many other markets already established, there wasn’t a lot of interest in yet another one.
But volunteer Joanna Newcomb started thinking: “If that’s not going to work, there’s something else we can do that is meaningful.”
That “something else” was a market that focused on refugee- and immigrant-owned and operated businesses. Newcomb and the team at the Gathering House ran the idea by organizations with close ties to the refugee and immigrant community, like World Relief, Thrive International, Latinos en Spokane and Manzanita House.
Folks at those groups told Newcomb that some of their clients who are business owners had been looking for another retail outlet or a way to connect with people who aren’t from their home country and therefore might not know about the business or restaurant.
With the support of the organizations and the interest of the refugee and immigrant communities, the Gathering House launched the Global Food and Art Market on Tuesday. The market runs every Tuesday through July 29 from 3-7 p.m. in the Gathering House parking lot.
So far, the market has attracted the attention of food vendors originally from Mexico, Iraq and Syria. An Asian tea, coffee and dessert vendor has signed up for future markets.
The market also features Ukrainian artists as well as artists from a variety of countries who participate in the Mahima Project, Thrive International’s women’s empowerment program. The women in the program, according to a post on the organization’s Instagram, create jewelry, sew, crochet dolls and paint. The women will also do henna at the market.
The first market featured seven vendors. Before the first market took place, a future event already had 11 vendors signed up. For this first season, Newcomb imagines many vendors returning week after week. In the future, she’s open to having a rotating cast of sellers who participate in a handful of markets over the course of the summer.
“We’re planning on it growing as we go and building those connections and getting the word out,” Newcomb said.
In its vision statement, the team behind the market writes, “Our vision is to establish the market as a celebrated annual tradition, fostering economic opportunity, cultural exchange and community connection for years to come.”
Newcomb, who stressed that the market is a nonreligious community event that’s simply hosted by the Gathering House, sees the market as an addition to the work organizations like World Relief, Thrive International, Latinos en Spokane and Manzanita House are doing to cultivate connections with the Spokane community, especially since there are no other markets for refugee and immigrant creators which last all season and not just for one weekend or as part of a bigger community event.
To facilitate those connections even more, the market will feature a large dining area with tables for people to sit at and relax as they eat.
“We’re really unlike a farmer’s market, where a lot of people go to get their errands done,” Newcomb said. “This is more like ‘Come have dinner. Come sit down and maybe talk to people you don’t know.’ ”
Those conversations will hopefully, Newcomb said, take people out of the issues they see dividing the country and into an understanding of the refugee and immigrant experience.
“Given the current difficult social climate we’re in, we’re hoping that this is a good place to show people who their neighbors are and give a face and a person to the issues that rattle around in people’s heads, so they can think about it in less abstract terms and be like ‘No the refugees and immigrants in Spokane are our neighbors and they’re running businesses just like a bunch of other people are,’ ” she said. “Make it a place where they can get to know people face to face and not just think of things in terms of policies or issues.”
