The sale, which began Wednesday and continues through today in the Georgian Room of the Indiana Memorial Union, features items from local Bloomington stores Global Gifts and Stone Belt.
Jana Surigao, development and marketing associate at Stone Belt, said the turnout so far has been ?favorable.
“It’s been pretty good, I think,” she said. “It’s been kind of a steady trickle, and there’ll be little spurts in between classes and meals. People have been in here a little more than usual.”
Most of the items for sale at the IMU can also be found at, among other places, Stone Belt’s location in the lobby of the Bloomington Playwrights Project, Surigao said.
Stone Belt, which serves the Bloomington, Bedford and Columbus communities, works toward preparing, empowering and supporting persons with developmental disabilities and their families to participate in the life of the community, according to Stone Belt’s website.
All of the artwork at the holiday sale comes from south central Indiana, Surigao said.
Senior Amelia Shroyer and freshman Wes Wagner work as volunteers for the Global Gifts table.
Global Gifts, a fair trade store, is part of the Fair Trade Bloomington group.
FTB was incorporated in October 2007, according to the FTB website.
Their goal is to increase the availability of fair trade products in Bloomington. As of 2013, Bloomington became Indiana’s first Fair Trade Town, according to the FTB website.
Now, FTB is trying to make all of IU Fair Trade certified as a university, Shroyer said.
“Basically, the goal of fair trade is essentially to give workers a fair deal for the product that they’re making,” Shroyer said.
Instead of remaining strictly local, Global Gifts buys products from several different countries and ?cooperatives.
Global Gifts has several locations, but only one in Bloomington, at 122 N. ?Walnut St.
“It’s not necessarily a local focus,” Shroyer said. “It’s kind of a global scale.”
