Support refugees, immigrants, and local public schools at these NYC holiday markets
Via Choose Love
This holiday season, instead of buying more stuff you don’t need, gift items that make a true difference in someone’s life. In Soho, Choose Love sells gifts that go directly to refugees, like tents and diapers. The “Give Back” holiday market in Gowanus is back this year, offering a percentage of all proceeds to the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES). And Upper West Side standby and the biggest of its kind in NYC, the Grand Bazaar Holiday Market will donate 100 percent of its profits to four local public schools.
Via Grand Bazaar NYC
Located at 100 West 77th Street, the Grand Bazaar is hosting its annual holiday market, which features 150 hand-picked local artisans. The indoor-outdoor market will offer 100 percent of the net profits from booth rental costs to four public schools in the neighborhood: PS 87, The Computer School, PS 334, and M.S. M247 Dual Language Middle School.
According to the organization, more than 4,000 public school children benefit from the funds, which help provide school supplies, books, and support sports programs.
Choose Love is the first store in the world to sell gifts for refugees. Customers buy items like tents, food, life jackets, shoes, diapers, and sleeping bags at the store, which funds the purchase, transport, and distribution of similar items to one of the 80 projects the organization oversees.
According to the company Help Refugees, if $7 is donated for meal ingredients that provides fresh produce and food for a family; 800,000 nutritious meals were donated this way last year.
Choose Love New York (there is also a store in London) is located at 456 West Broadway in Soho and is opened between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and noon to 6 p.m. on Sundays. There’s also a pop-up inside the Tenement Museum at 103 Orchard Street that will be open in the Museum Shop’s theater space on December 13th and 14th open late on Thursday (10 am- 8:30 am) and during the shop’s normal operating hours on Friday (10am-6: 30 pm).
“This year, as displaced people attempt to survive another freezing winter in tents and makeshift shelters, we’ll be inviting people to Choose Love once again and support refugees and homeless populations across the globe,” a spokesperson for Help Refugees told 6sqft in an email.
And for two days only, the Textile Arts Center is hosting its third annual Give Back holiday market in Gowanus, at 505 Carroll Street. On Dec. 15 and 16, the center invites shoppers to support local artisans and enjoy family crafts and a silent auction.
A percentage of all sales will go to RAICES, a group which aims to help separated or detained families, unaccompanied minors, and others seeking asylum in the U.S.
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