For the past 14 years, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church has hosted an annual multi-day Ten Thousand Villages Fair Trade International Craft Fair, helping the nonprofit retailer support marginalized makers around the world. 

Before Good Shepherd Lutheran, the Mennonite Church hosted the craft fair in Glenwood Springs for 25 years.

“The purpose is to help people in developing countries earn a living wage. They often work with women or the disadvantaged or with people that have handicaps or anything that would make it more difficult for them to make a living,” Rachael Carcaterra, event coordinator and Sopris Elementary School teacher, said. “They make sure that they pay people ahead of time and they can count on the salary.”

Ten Thousand Villages seeks to address economic injustice by fostering an “artisan investment model,” building long-term partnerships with marginalized makers that promote financial security. 

The church works with a Ten Thousand Villages store in Wyoming to help sell its handmade goods, providing a free space and over 40 volunteers for the multi-day sale. 

The sale at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, 1630 Grand Ave. in Glenwood Springs, is open noon to 6 p.m. Nov. 7, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nov. 8, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 9 and noon to 4 p.m. Nov. 10. Both cash and card are accepted. 

Ten Thousand Villages partners with over 75 artisan groups and over 20,000 makers in more than 20 developing countries. More than half of the artisans are women, according to Ten Thousand Villages. 

The organization creates a transparent price agreement before offering artisans an interest-free microfinance investment. Over the last 19 years, Ten Thousand Villages has invested around $110 million in international artisans. 

Artists then craft their products and receive payment before it’s exported. Ten Thousand Villages creates marketplaces for handmade goods and sells the products. Around 92% of revenue is reinvested in the nonprofit’s maker-to-market mission, with 8% applied to administration and other costs, according to Ten Thousand Villages. 

“It’s amazing to see the ingenuity that people have because they just use what they have and create beautiful art,” Carcaterra said. “People are just very creative and amazing with what they do. They’re true artists, but they are living in places where they don’t have the resources we do, but they still come up with really beautiful art. It’s just really fun to unpack it and see what’s from all over the world.”

Each product has a tag that lists its name and where it was crafted. Kathmandu singing bowls made in Nepal, ria crackle glass jars, blooming vine pitchers and stone serving boards crafted in India and rainbow star garlands made in Bangladesh are among the items sold at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church this week. 

“They will get really nice handmade gifts instead of something made in a factory,” Carcaterra said. “People really love receiving gifts that also have meaning and they know that somebody made it by hand and it meant a lot to that person. They’re very meaningful gifts.”

Carcaterra has coordinated the Ten Thousand Villages Fair Trade International Craft Fair at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church since 2017. 

“It’s joyful. I feel like it’s just worth it on the surface out of the joy I get out of it, but also I think it’s just a really good cause,” Carcaterra said. “The church really believes in it because we’re  supposed to love our neighbor, which includes the whole world, especially those who are disadvantaged…so it really aligns with what I think we should be doing in this world.”