Beyond The Plate – A Podcast by Food For The Poor
Food isn't just delicious... it can also change your life! Tune into Beyond the Plate, a new podcast presented by International Charity: Food For The Poor. Get inspired with conversations that nourish the soul. Hear amazing stories of transformation from faith influencers, leaders in the nonprofit sector, and the individuals receiving aid in the 15 countries of Latin America that Food For The Poor serves.
Beyond The Plate – A Podcast by Food For The Poor
Ep. 20 - Threads of Hope: Humble Bags Empower Women
What happens when rural indigenous women gain access to global markets? Lives transform, cycles of poverty break, and daughters begin to dream of careers unimaginable to their mothers. This powerful story unfolds as we speak with Ruth Álvarez-DeGolia, who started Mercado Global as an Ivy-League university sophomore selling handcrafted items on campus, and has since built a movement empowering thousands of women across rural Guatemala.
The magic happens at the intersection of traditional craftsmanship and economic opportunity. Through a partnership with Food for the Poor that provides industrial sewing machines, looms, critical training and more, these artisans are creating products now carried by Levi Strauss, Stitch Fix, and Stuart Weitzman. But the transformation runs deeper than fashion – with 75% of participating women now sending their children to school and many opening their first bank accounts.
Discover how beautiful, handcrafted products are creating generational change, and why Ruth believes indigenous Guatemalan women deserve to be recognized as some of the world's most innovative rural entrepreneurs. Support this work by visiting foodforthepoor.org/mothersday or following #MercadoGlobal.
@levis
@stitchfix
@stuartweitzman
Beyond The Plate is a podcast by international charity, Food For The Poor
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Welcome to Beyond the Plate a Food for the Poor podcast. I'm Paul Jacobs here. Food opens the door to powerful stories of hope, connection and transformation.
Speaker 2:And I'm Daniel Patino. Each episode we go beyond the meal to the heart of the people, places and purpose behind it.
Speaker 1:This is Beyond the Plate, where every story starts with what's on the table.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Beyond the Plate a Food for the Poor podcast, where we share stories behind the hands that heal, feed and lift up communities across Latin America and the Caribbean. I'm your host, Daniel Patino, and today we're looking at how Mercado Global is turning bags and bracelets into food. And, trust me, you're going to want to hear this.
Speaker 1:Trust me, you're going to want to hear this. Hey, I'm Paul Jacobs, and we're so grateful that you get to share this episode with us, because what I really love is the fact that we're going to uplift mothers. This is our Mother's Day episode. That's why I dressed up a little bit today. Ah, I see you did. Yeah, I mean we both did.
Speaker 2:I'm standing up straight.
Speaker 1:I'm sitting up straight. We both did we both. This is amazing. We get an opportunity to truly show you what it means to uplift moms and uplift women in a way that you probably thought it was just you know. You know you're running the mill online shopping, but beyond that, there's a purpose in all of it, and so our guest is going to really help us to understand a little bit deeper how important that is right, that's right.
Speaker 2:And Mercado Global, if you don't know, has worked with Food for the Poor in the past and we've been doing miracles, we've been making things happen, folks, and we're doing it through empowering women. Yeah, and that's why there's a little correlation here Mother's Day as well, because some of these women are mothers, daughters, wives. People are the pillar of their household and it's amazing what mercado global is doing day in and day out, and the fact that food for the poorest cross paths also. I love it.
Speaker 1:It's it's like joining another party when there's another party going on, but this is a party for good yeah, no, exactly, and I've got for those of you that are watching us on youtube, I've got some of these really cool products that that, uh, mercado global and these. This is my favorite, because this is a very manly wallet it is. We'll talk more about it on Father's Day episode. Okay, yeah, all right, that's good for now.
Speaker 2:But the bracelets, but the bracelets and the other.
Speaker 1:Jewelry is again one handmade and two beautiful, exactly, and you know it's interesting, danny One of the things that was so striking when we were looking at, you know, the purpose behind the creation and the really the legacy that is being created by Mercado Global and this partnership with Food for the Poor. We came across this quote from Lydia Garcia, the director of operations in Guatemala, and she said something that I think really is well. It's an eye opener to why Mercado Global exists and why Food for the Poor has partnered for these many years. And so she said, talking about the women right, the moms. They're realizing that this is the best way to overcome and break the cycle of poverty. But wait a minute. I thought we were talking about selling these amazing products online. Yes, we're talking about breaking cycles of poverty.
Speaker 1:Well, it's beautiful, you know, it's interesting because I've seen it firsthand. We've seen it firsthand, that's right. You know, when food for the poor, our partners like Mercado Global, our beneficiaries and they all come together, we have something that happens in this synergy right, delivering hope in the most practical and life-changing ways. Case in point years ago and this has still stayed with me to this day we were in Guatemala and we came upon this community. It was a co-op of farmers. But the unique part about this co-op of farmers, they were all indigenous guatemalan women, all of them in el jalú, this farming community with these micro tunnels. Imagine, right, you know, like up north, where they've got these little tunnels that hide their truck from the heavy snow. We don't know anything about that. I don't know nothing about those, but I've seen it on television, put me there, put me there.
Speaker 1:I've stayed at a motel six once, I don't know, but I must stay there exactly. But it's to do again to protect from the elements and protect everyone and it's made out.
Speaker 1:It's made within the cave right or made within the mountain, in the tunnel, in these mountains, these dry and arid areas where literally they go through dry spells, where nothing grows, it's dry and drier, dry and drier, and they do drip irrigation so that these farming women who now own this land, in this microtunnel farm and also get to sell in the market these products Beautiful and this is the cool part these products in this El Jalou farm this I mean at the time it was four, it's probably more now it was 450 women in this project. They have taken their products from Guatemala, in El Jalou, into marketplaces, retail food, retail food outlets, excuse me, in North America, in Europe, in Asia. They named some of these big box stores and I was just like, wow, you mean, these women are selling me in South Florida, in Europe, in Asia, all of these products and I probably don't even realize when I'm buying this produce, I'm buying from these women in their in, in their endeavors. And here's the best part Watch this. This is the really. There's more yeah.
Speaker 2:No, no, no.
Speaker 1:There's more. Yeah, what was really cool was the fact that these women had perfected this drip irrigation in this, this, this. You know this market so much, this technology, so they had perfected it so well. They were consulting other farmers in dubai, took these indigenous women all the way to the Middle East so that they could affect change in Dubai. So, but here's the reality check. Right, let's do the numbers. In the total population of Central America, there's about 50 million people. It's estimated somewhere between 10 to 20% of Central America's population are indigenous and in Guatemala, just in Guatemala alone, it's 40 to 45%, almost half of Guatemalans from indigenous background. So you can just imagine the magnitude of women in this percentage of population that do not have these opportunities and why this partnership and others like it, helping women like this is so vitally important.
Speaker 2:And I love that. Mercado Global has seen something. They've seen the diamond in the rough, right, when it is. If we can change that number for good, imagine the possibilities not only for women but for just families in whole, just for a brighter future, just for better beginnings. But before we dive in, I would like to introduce someone whose vision has changed thousands of lives, Some of the lives Paul and I have been kind of talking about here this afternoon.
Speaker 2:Here Now, Ruth Alvarez de Golia is the co-founder and executive director of Mercado Global. What started as a small nonprofit working with just a handful of women artisans in Guatemala has become a powerful force in social enterprise. Now they're connecting rulemakers with global markets and that's creating a lasting change, one job at a time. And she's been honored by Yale, recognized by Newsweek as one of the 15 people who make America great, and named one of the world's top emerging social entrepreneurs. But what stands out most is her heart and the way she sees dignity, not just in what's made, but in who makes it. Ruth, thank you for joining us and let's start at the beginning, please.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me here today. It's such an honor.
Speaker 1:I love this, this designation 15 people who are making America great from rural Guatemala.
Speaker 2:This is great, and unfortunately there's only 15. And I hope there's more next year, that's it.
Speaker 1:So you know we're talking to you in San Francisco visiting your 99 year old grandmother. We're just amazed that you have this opportunity to spend with her. And, of course, how awesome is this? Your your visit coincides with this Mother's Day episode of Beyond the Plate. We're so grateful to have you.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you so much. It's very special.
Speaker 1:You know, take us back, Ruth, to the beginning. You know you're an Ivy League college sophomore and you've got a project and you decide Latin America and women as the basis for the beginnings of what is now Mercado Global. Some 21 years later, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I was so fortunate. I had a fellowship to go work with an association of rural communities over the summer after my sophomore year, and I had no plans to start anything, but I just, I had never felt so useful in my entire life to get to be there and work and be in partnership with these amazing women who were fighters. You know, most of them had never had the chance to go to school, they couldn't read and write. A lot of these women had lost their husbands during the Civil War, during massacres that occurred, but they were fighting. There was nothing they wanted more than to provide a better future for their kids. And, you know, we tried everything. Tried, you know, tried to build a local market, all sorts of things. But what they really needed more than anything was just access to the international market, because they were these amazing weavers and it started just as a favor to them.
Speaker 3:This was back in 2004. Well, actually that was 2002 before it was kind of exciting to be a social entrepreneur. I remember going back to Yale and setting up on campus and these women had asked me, as a favor to them, to take their artesanias and sell them wherever I came from, as they put it, and I remember setting it up and it was not considered very prestigious to be selling things, but I was like this is the most important thing that I could do, and that first weekend we sold $5,000 in product and it sent 26 little girls to elementary school for a year. And that's where it started and it was such a privilege to get to be in partnership with these amazing women and to be part of partnering with them to create a better lives for their families.
Speaker 1:What did that do for you? Seeing the interest on this side of the world and the need being met for those families that you just visited in Guatemala?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, you know, it really reminded me of a couple of things. So one is you know, 10% of Guatemalans actually live in the US. So these are our neighbors and we're so connected in so many ways, like it or not, we are all connected. God, this could have been me, this could have been my sister, it could have been my mom that couldn't get education growing up in Guatemala, and it was really exciting to see that people wanted their products and people wanted to help. You know who doesn't want to help a mom send her kids to school, like everybody wants that.
Speaker 3:And if you also could buy an amazing scarf or clutch or tote while you're doing it, I mean what a win-win, right Right. Or tote while you're doing it, I mean what a win-win, right Right. So I think an energy is unleashed when you bring together people that otherwise never would have met, would never have connected. And so to bring together consumers in the US, women that want to have an impact through their purchasing power, and makers in Central America who make these gorgeous pieces, it really unleashes the power and it brings people together to build the kind of world that we want all of our children to grow up in.
Speaker 1:So I'm biased here because I'm part of the 10% or at least my household is my wife is from Guatemala.
Speaker 1:That's right, and you know, and you know, before I married Mari Garamond. You know, one of the things that was striking to me in all the years that I traveled back and forth to Guatemala was the level of quality and the level of just just the creativity in some of the in the marketplace, in the, whether it was bags and it was jewelry, whatever. It was so amazing. And I always said to myself this is like you, this has to be in stores across the United States because it's so amazing. And I always said to myself this is like you, this has to be in stores across the United States because it's so beautiful. I would always carry a little extra stuff back.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've got so much in my office and home and this is even before I got married, right, but, um, I just you know the fact that you, you had this experience and these, these women, and you made that connection back here, and then all of a sudden, you start to build this partner artesian system. I mean, I can't explain it other than that, because what was interesting was that you don't call them poor. I haven't heard the word. You know the poor indigenous women, when I read everything about Mercado Global. These are partner artisans. Why is that? That's good.
Speaker 3:Because these women are incredibly inspirational.
Speaker 3:They are fighters and you know what we do is hard.
Speaker 3:You know we with Food for the Poor support we are able to provide training, technical training and weaving and sewing to master their craft and business development support, self-esteem training, financial literacy, how to build your business.
Speaker 3:But you know, for women who are going out and trying to figure out how are they going to feed their families that day, you know to put in the time to benefit from those trainings is a big thing. A lot of these women live in communities that might be 10 hours away from our offices and they're traveling to pick up materials and deliver finished goods and we work with co-ops so that they can do that together. Right, but you know it's hard work. You know, if you've ever had education learning how to build a business, it's's a lot of work. So to us, they are our partners, our core values, our partnership, authenticity and respect, and they are partners we, and it's a privilege for us to get to partner with these women to do this work and to build this world together, and so that's how we think of our partner artisans we're talking with rufal.
Speaker 2:for us, the goalie, the co-founder and executive director of Mercado Global, and I'm going to piggyback on what you just said there. Let's talk about power of partnership, and Mercado Global and Food for the Poor are working together, and what makes that collaboration really work. What's something that you've seen that proves that?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm so grateful to get to count Food for the Poor as one of our partners.
Speaker 3:We're so grateful for it, and I love that the staff at Food for the Poor have this amazing expertise on how to support community development.
Speaker 3:And getting the chance to work with Food for the Poor's in-country directors in Guatemala and Honduras and in other regions and to benefit from the knowledge that the team has about the region and different projects they've funded is really fantastic. And the other thing I would say is you know, a sad little truth in the nonprofit world is sometimes the organizations that are doing the best work you have your head down. You're doing the great work. Like our team is all indigenous women on the ground in Guatemala working with our partner communities doing that good work, which means we don't have this big staff in the US able to fundraise to make that work possible, right, and so to have a partner that's connected to this network that can share exactly what you're doing right now sharing, you know, I'm thinking about people who listen to this podcast who might not otherwise have known what we're doing if it wasn't for you guys. That is incredibly powerful and we're able to get good work done because we have great partnerships so that together we can get it done.
Speaker 2:And I love that that same path has crossed, has made us cross each other here and again. We're talking with Ruth Alvarez-Golia, co-founder and executive director of Mercado Global All right.
Speaker 1:So I'm a numbers guy and I want to do the numbers here we're talking several projects going back more than seven years that have helped either Mercado Global provide training or equipment and materials to start changing lives. This is the partnership with Food for the Poor and Mercado Global. And let me let me run down some some numbers here. Delivered 70 industrial sewing machines. Delivered 15 over lock machines. For those of you that know sewing, I'm sure you are impressed. I'm impressed by the numbers I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I can order an overlock on amazon, but that's another story for another day A hundred of them. Maybe that's what I'll get from mom for Mother's Day.
Speaker 1:You can only buy them in bulk. You can only buy them in bulk. Seven floor looms. Now I know what a loom is and I've seen how big. I've actually been in a home where a family had their entire second little house, which is one loom. I mean this thing's massive, right, we're talking about seven floor looms, 173 advanced sewing toolkits, 173 sets of regular training materials, 87 floor loom weaving material sets, 181 detailed training materials, technical sewing training, technical floor loom training, community-based education and trainers Wi-Fi. Oh well, there you go. Yeah, I mean, you know we got to communicate, right, I got to tell. And trainers Wi-Fi. Okay, well, there you go. Yeah, I mean, you know we got to communicate, right, I got to tell people about this and generators, yeah, and you know what's also been delivered Countless women with hope for a future.
Speaker 1:Countless children whose mothers and let's do that let's kind of look at those numbers really quick. You're talking about more than a third of these partner artisans that may now have bank accounts. Three quarters of these women, more than 75% are enrolling their children in schools. This is again I want to, you know. I want to talk about why this is much more than just selling these, and they are beautiful products. Yes, this is really changing a generation. You are establishing an entire generation on a completely different level through what they do best. But I love the fact that you start at the basis, which is self-esteem, it's leadership, it's you know, it's giving them the foundations, and then we start talking about the skill sets of sewing and all of these other things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right. Well, you know, I wanted to share it too. Those numbers you read, those are the numbers for this year. That's even not cumulative with all the years that Food for the Poor supported us. So it's exciting. It's exciting what we're able to accomplish together, wow.
Speaker 2:And I wanted to share a quick quote with you here, and there's a quote we've heard around here Food for the poor and I'm pretty sure it echoes sometimes at Mercado Global. Before I walked to the dump for scraps, now I walk to my sewing machine. What comes up for you when you hear that now?
Speaker 3:That the power to earn your own dollar changes your life, totally changes your life. There's nothing more important in terms of being able to map out the future you want for yourself, your family and your kids, and I think that's what's so exciting. You know and I know Food for the Poor knows this very well that one of the most effective ways to break the cycle of poverty is just help the mom get an income stream, because when moms have their income stream, we know that 90 cents of every dollar goes straight to those kids getting them enough to eat, getting them into school, making sure that they're living in a safe home environment, and there's just nothing else. That is as effective. Study after study is shown, and for most women, when we're partnering with them, this is really the first time they're earning their own income, and there's so many ways to measure that. So we're all about KPIs and key performance indicators and social impact assessments and tracking the numbers, but I think for me, the way I feel and internalize our impact is that you know, when women first come to us to partner and to ask for help building a community cooperative in their community, a lot of those women just say that once they've started in the eyes and to holding yourself with pride, telling people that all your daughters are in school, telling people about what you are accomplishing for your family.
Speaker 3:I remember one of the artisans that we partnered with went and within six months she'd earned enough money to buy a potato, buy a piece of land and hire her father to work that land. And that was after she had dropped out of school in elementary school because he couldn't afford to send her. So she was sending her younger daughters to school and she had hired her father to work the land. And you know, you could put numbers on that, but just seeing that pride in women when they're doing these things for their family is what gives me strength, strength and motivates me. So it's very exciting.
Speaker 2:I got two daughters of my own at home and I know you've been talking about these partner artitians. Artitians, excuse me artists artisans I'll get it right and weavers and and powerful women. Now we're talking about daughters, talking about wives, but also about moms, right, and how do the kids respond when there's finally enough to eat?
Speaker 3:oh well, you know it's. It's not just enough to eat, but when you have the ability to dream, because if you don't have the chance to go to school, it Like I see this with women that come to us that can't read and write because they never had a chance to go to school, and knowing that your family wasn't able to, or that the father decided to send the sons and not the girls, that is something that lives on in your heart for a long time getting that chance because of their mom. They're so proud of their moms and it's so exciting and it's we.
Speaker 3:We recently did this thing where we interviewed the daughters of some of our artisans on the video and it was just these little girls. They have big dreams. They want to be veterinarians, they want to be lawyers, they want to be accountants. You know, some of them also want to be artisans. But, like the fact that they, they can dream they could be whatever they want to be, you know, is very, very exciting and and it's really, it's really special to get to be part of that.
Speaker 1:I wonder what that take your child to work day looks like That'd be fun. That looks that'd be amazing. Right, you said something and I want to piggyback on Danny. You know he's his two young girls and and just the light of their life in their household and whenever they come and we visit together and we stay, you know we're together. They're the light of my life because I just love watching them grow up and be who they are. But when you started this, you weren't a mom, you were a college sophomore. Now you're a mom with two little ones of your own. What have you learned from this experience and from these women, and especially the children as you just described? That has really helped you.
Speaker 3:Well, it's been such a journey and such a blessing for me to get to do this work and to get to be the strength that I get from getting to be in partnership with these women. And you know, when I first started for me, it was so personal because these were other women and you know, we grew up in different places and there were, of course, lots of things that were different, but also, fundamentally, so many of the challenges are the same and it's just a question of degree. But now, having two daughters myself, it really takes it even to another level, because you start to realize. So you know one thing when I'm talking to people in the US about the work we do, we'll share a statistic that's really hard, which is that in rural Guatemala, two out of three children go to bed hungry every night, two out of three. And I'll ask people to consider how would you feel if you, if you didn't have enough, you couldn't give dinner to your kids at night? You know how could you imagine what that would be like? And that was something that was always powerful to me. But now, when I have my own daughters, I'm like, oh my god, like it's almost unimaginable. Um, and so it makes you.
Speaker 3:You know, like I think about like when COVID hit that and all the factories in Guatemala City closed down for six months, remittances dried up and there is just famine throughout the region. And I remember I remember we are going to figure out how to get as many families through this as possible and we, in March 2020, the artisans came up with this idea that cause they were worried about us and and you know our team in the U S, cause at the time, it seemed like it was like a New York city issue. They little did people know it was coming for all of us, right? And they're like can we make masks to send people? And so we started making masks and we ended up. We ended up making it was like half a million masks that provided so much work to all these women and families at a time when there was just no income in the region.
Speaker 3:And that's one thing I'm proud of and but, but that's what that's, that's how I think now, like, when things get difficult, you just remember how important this work is and how everyone's counting on you and it's very personal, and I think that's that's. That's what makes it so important, is it's personal to all of us, because we all. Everyone has a mother right and even if you don't have your own kids, there are children you love. So that gives me a lot of strength.
Speaker 2:Picture this you're crafting an amazing beer, but stepping into the non-alcoholic market feels impossible, too expensive, too risky sound familiar.
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Speaker 1:Cheers to that BareBrewscom that's B-A-R-E Brewscom. We're talking with Ruth Alvarez de Golioff, the executive director and co-founder of Mercado Global, a Food for the Poor partner, and a very proud partner at that. You can find their products on our gift catalog at foodforthepoororg. But this is our Mother's Day episode and specifically, we're empowering moms. And I'm going back to your story about when you brought that first set of material to school back in college and I'm saying to myself I wonder if somebody is listening right now and says you know what I want to. I want to, I want to do another $5,000. Imagine, imagine we get, imagine this story has inspired somebody to say I'll put another $5,000. Imagine, imagine we get. Imagine this story has inspired somebody to say I'll put another $5,000 and start another generation of moms and you talk about every time you mention you say, these partisan, you know partners, partner artisans, or these women.
Speaker 1:I'm always bringing it back to the moms because I've seen it and when, when I've been to Guatemala, and for many years, and I you know, food for the Poor has 15 countries in which we serve and I've been here almost 15 years at Food for the Poor and Guatemala has a very special place, even before I met my wife. Guatemala had a very special place in my heart because of the people, but because of those moms, because I saw in the eyes and in the hearts of many of those moms, marie Jacobs Burke, my mom, and so it's just amazing that you're here turning around the efforts of Mercado Global to help uplift moms and doing it in a way that's so dignifying. And we were talking the other day and I love this and told everybody I'm gonna put this on a t-shirt. You said this the other day and I really believe that you believe it, because we see the fruits of it Until you believe in yourself, everything seems impossible. And I really believe that you have endeavored to help these women truly believe in themselves so that these women, these mothers, these families and communities, these partner artisans, can truly say half a million masks possible, another line of of tote bags or carry-alls, or wallets, or necklace jewelry let's do it. I love when you were talking to us the other day about those 17 inch necklaces.
Speaker 1:Right, couldn't be 18. No, couldn't be 16. No.
Speaker 2:And throw those away, right, oh no.
Speaker 1:But when you, when you put together these group of women that help them believe in themselves, it was possible and I commend you for that, I commend everyone behind you for that in Mercado Global. So, as we wrap up, I really want to just kind of ask a very, you know, big picture question and I just have to know, we have to know, what is the greatest dream for the next artesian partner, artesian next woman, next mom who joins Mercado Global. What's the greatest dream, what's your greatest dream for the next 21 years?
Speaker 3:my dream is that indigenous women in rural Guatemala are seen for what they are, which are some of the best rural entrepreneurs in the world. They know that their daughters are going to be able to go to school, their kids are going to be able to go to school, they're going to be able to feed their families, that they can build this bright future for their families right there in their communities where they live in rural Guatemala, that that is the new normal and that is our goal.
Speaker 3:That is what we are working to the future we are working to build and it's exciting to get to partner with food for the poor and all of your supporters to do that. It's exciting to get to partner. You know I'm in San Francisco right now, as you know, meeting with Levi Strauss and Stitch Fix and all these big retailers that are partners that source products from our artisans, and it's exciting to help the fashion industry be part of helping these women build this better future, be part of helping these women build this better future. So we're going to scale that and we want to reach everyone so that this is the new normal.
Speaker 2:And that's beautiful, and I want to shift gears there, where you just went to something fun. Visibility is what you're talking about there, and some of these bags have been spotted in fashion magazines and, like you just said, they're working with big brands that people know and love and they've been seen on red carpets. And with big brands that people know and love and have been seen on red carpets, and how does that feel to know that something in that small village is now on a global stage? But I think, more importantly I was just thinking I was talking to Paul about this earlier and do these women know about these moments? Like, do they actually get to know and what's their reaction?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, we really try. You know we have a community-based education team. So all the women that work with us, they get a class every other week in their communities where we're helping them build their businesses and we will bring, like when their pieces are in vogue, when they're. We have this whole collaboration with Stuart Weitzman. We brought pictures of these gorgeous heels and all these pieces that Stuart Weitzman took their fabric and made this gorgeous shoe collection out of their fabric. So we'll bring pictures. We'll bring the magazines into the community. So we work hard for them to make sure they know, because they are so incredibly proud when they get to see that. So we'll bring our design and retail partners down.
Speaker 3:I remember the first time we brought people from Levi Strauss into one of our communities that they were literally clapped into the community by the artisans. They were just working on a six-month order for them of 26,000 totes and they just like clapped the whole Levi's team into their community. They were so excited. So work, we work to make sure that they all know. Um, I wish we could bring all of our artisans up here to the stores. Like tomorrow we have out here in San Francisco. We have an event with free people. They're doing this big Mother's Day event, shopping event tomorrow, with Latin music and everything, and I'm like, oh, the artisans would love this, they would love seeing their pieces in the store and how excited everyone is for them.
Speaker 2:So we try to use try to use video and photography to share that and there are any hashtags or any campaigns you got going on now that you want to plug while we're here, yeah oh well, just hashtag mercolagal ball.
Speaker 3:If you believe in what we do, just posting, talking about why it's important to you to to buy products that help build a better world for women, I think that that would probably be my ask and to go to Food for the Poor's website to see the artisan's product and to support the work that Food for the Poor does with us and with other amazing groups throughout Central America.
Speaker 1:I see Mercado Global sponsoring the Met Gala. Mercado Global, paris Fashion Week. Mercado Global runway show in Milan, italy. I see it Every mall You're with Levi Strauss, every mall's got a Levi's store. I see that section or the front display Mercado Global. It's happening because until you believe in yourself, everything seems, seems impossible, and you believe in these partner artisans. Ruth, thank you for being a part of beyond the plate a food for the poor podcast and just sharing your heart and sharing the story of these partner artisans, these women, these mothers who desperately, desperately need a hand up, and you're giving them that. Thank you. Oh, and, by the way, happy Mother's Day.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you so much. Well, happy Mother's Day to your wives and mothers as well.
Speaker 1:Thank you, ruth, thanks for listening. We hope you felt the connection. One plate, one story, one act of love Can change everything.
Speaker 2:Discover more stories and join our community at foodfortheportorg slash podcast, and follow us too at beyondtheplatepodcast. Together, we can make a difference. This is Beyond the Plate.
