Downtown fair-trade shop closing
The Buddhas from Nepal must go.
The hamper from Cameroon. The earrings from Chile. The elephants from Pakistan. Even November’s Natural Soap for Change, all the way from Colville.
Everything, out the door.
Global Folk Art is closing.
The nonprofit seller of fair-trade goods from all over the world has succumbed after 15 often non-profitable years, said Director Kristina Rood. April 30 will be its last day.
Rood said the store has always struggled – it was closed for one year – but the general downturn in retail wrote the obituary. After a good 2006, when sales reached about $90,000, receipts last year fell to $75,000.
Christmas was particularly bad, said Reanette Boese, who has been involved with Global Folk Art since it was founded in 1992 by Nancy Nelson and Denise Attwood. She and Rood put up their own money at times to keep the store open, as did many others.
The decision to close was wrenching for longtime supporters, she said.
Like other retailers, Rood said, Global Folk Art depended on Christmas shoppers to carry operations through slow winter months. But receipts were so poor that the store did not have the cash to restock.
About half the inventory is purchased, and the other half is consigned by Ganesh Himal Trekking & Trading Co., importers who May 1 will reclaim goods that remain unsold even after the store offers steep discounts.
The vendors have been very supportive, said Boese, as has developer Jim Sheehan, who allowed an architect to design space specifically for Global Folk Art when he first remodeled the Community Building at 35 W. Main Ave. seven years ago. Boese said she likes the airy space so much she used to visit even when, as a graduate student, she could not afford to buy anything.
Now, Boese said, “My house is pretty much decorated with things from this store.”
Global Folk Art has carried ceramics, baskets, apparel and jewelry from as many as 60 countries.
Boese said “fair-trade goods” are those made by craftspeople who earn living wages. The fair-trade movement originated in the 1940s with the Mennonites, a Christian sect to which she belongs. An affiliate, Ten Thousand Villages, is among the largest importers of fair-trade goods.
She said that although the neighborhood around the Community Building has improved in recent years, parking has always been a problem, and the store had little money for advertising.
“This stuff is kind of a whim,” Rood added. “In this economy, people are shopping for what they need.”
She said a mostly volunteer work force supervised by an underpaid, part-time manager has also been a handicap. “It’s not a good business model,” said Rood, who ran a retail store of her own in California.
But the end for Global Folk Art does not mean the end of fair-trade shopping in Spokane.
Rood said Kim Harmson, a former volunteer who works for Ganesh Himal, plans to open a store selling mostly fair-trade goods in the same location in September. “The good news is that fair trade won’t be gone,” Rood said.