BETHLEHEM — Susan Kilgallon, an architect and professor emeritus, lives a comfortable life in Glenmont but cares about people in far-away places who are suffering.

Kilgallon has a friend who served in the Peace Corps, living in Costa Rica on the outskirts of San Jose. She told Kilgallon about a family she knew there — a family made up of a mother and her four daughters, all under the age of 6.

They came to the community center where the Peace Corps volunteer served meals. The volunteer got to know the woman and learned that she had to lock her four girls in a small shed every day to keep them safe as she went to work to earn enough money to feed and clothe them. Each day, the mother, returning from work, would bring the girls a treat — like a drink — as she released them from the shed.

“Of course the children saw this as normal,” said Kilgallon. Her friend, the Peace Corps volunteer, told her that, although there is much wealth in San Jose, there is also much poverty, and child care for young children is not an option for the poor.

Kilgallon told this story when asked why she is organizing a Black Friday Fair Trade Market at her church. She is the outreach chairwoman for the Delmar Presbyterian Church, which pastor Karen Pollan says has 186 congregants.

“We’re a small church,” said Kilgallon. “The Fair Trade Market allows us to tackle issues we wouldn’t be able to do as individuals….We’re helping people help themselves. With fair trade, they get paid a living wage and can rise above the economic circumstances that often keep them down.”

She went on, “There are places where parents are forced to give away their children. We’re giving people an opportunity to have better lives.”

This is the second year that  the Delmar Presbyterian Church has hosted the Fair Trade Market, which will run on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 25 and 26. “We can help others and at the same time find unique and wonderful Christmas gifts. So we can feel good while we’re helping others.”

The 11 vendors featured at the market offer a wide variety of goods and sponsor an equally wide variety of causes — many of them centered on women.

Weaving history and identity

Mayan Hands, for example, works with about 200 women in eight Guatemalan communities.

For thousands of years, Mayan women have used a simple backstrap loom to clothe and support their families. Some of their designs are so complex that it takes an expert weaver an hour or more to weave an inch of cloth.

Mayan history as well as the weaver’s identity is woven into the cloth she creates, according to an essay by Brenda P. Rosenbaum,  “Mayan Women, Weaving and Ethnic Identity: a Historical Essay.”

“Our Grandmother the Moon, the goddess Ixchel, taught the first woman how to weave at the beginning of time,” according to Mayan myth recorded by Rosenbaum and repeated by Mayan Hands. “Since then, Maya mothers have taught their daughters, from generation to generation uninterruptedly for three thousand years, how to wrap themselves around the loom and produce exquisite cloth.”

In a traditional Maya context, Rosenbaum writes, when a girl is born, the midwife presents her with the different instruments of weaving, one by one, and she says, “Well then, little girl,/This will be your hand/This will be your foot/Here is your work/With this, you’ll look for your food,/Don’t take the evil path,/Don’t steal/When you grow up/Only with these will you work/With your hand/With your foot.

Girls learn to weave from their mothers, an art passed through generations, and take their first finished works to the patron saint of weaving, Santa Rosa, in the Chamula Church. “They go there often with their mothers to pray to the saint that she might grant them the art of weaving. Handling sacred symbols of her culture and keeping in touch with the deities empowers Mayan women,” Rosenbaum writes.

Mayan women for centuries have preserved their culture’s worldview through their woven designs, which unlike books burned by Spanish conquerors have survived, according to Walter Morris who wrote about weaving designs in “Living Maya.”

Morris describes the huipil, the traditional blouse worn by Mayan women, and shows how one blouse, for instance, can depict the rotation of the sun through the sky and into the underworld — the weaver’s own vision of the universe that she becomes the center of by wearing the blouse. A Maya woman weaves to express her own identity as well as that of her community.

According to Mayan Hands, Guatemala now has a million weavers with not enough customers to support them so the women often sell their wares for less than it cost to make them and live in desperate poverty. The not-for-profit organization sells the women’s goods at fair-trade prices to a worldwide audience, helping to ease the poverty.

“With an income, they feed their families better, send their children to school, improve their homes and even save a little,” according to Mayan Hands. “Selling their handwoven textiles at a fair price, the women are gaining control over their lives.”

Eleven vendors

Kilgallon’s church took on the Fair Trade Market, she said, after receiving a call from Marilyn Kriss. “She was looking for a place to hold the fair. It began with a 2009 Bible study group. They learned about human trafficking and the sex slavery trade, and felt they needed to find a way to help the women and children,” said Kilgallon.

They found an organization to work through, she said, and began selling products made by survivors of sex trafficking. Over the years, they learned of other similar businesses, also working to help marginalized groups and partnered with the Fair Trade Bethlehem campaign to form the Black Friday Fair Trade Market.

“Our show has 11 different vendors, all different,” said Kilgallon. Excited about helping a variety of causes, Kilgallon described the vendors that will be at the Bethlehem market the two days after Thanksgiving.

“When we accept a vendor, we ask them questions like: ‘Who do you help?’ or ‘Where do your funds go?’” said Kilgallon. “This information comes from the contracts they sign with us”:

— Mayan Hands, working with Guatemalans so they can remain in their ancestral homes and support themselves through traditional crafts;

— Mango Tree Imports, a fair-trade shop in Saratoga with a variety of products from fair-trade artisans  from around the world;

— Women’s Peace Collection, focusing on helping women and also supporting fair-trade projects in 12 countries. “Their jewelry is amazing,” said Kilgallon;

— Equal Exchange, helping farmers in Central and South America and Africa, particularly with coffee, tea, and chocolate products as well as other foods;

— Heartsounds Uganda, reducing the misunderstanding and stigma endured by mental-health service users through sale of jewelry they produce;

— Cross Culture Market, based in Ravena, fighting worldwide poverty through sales of fair-trade handicrafts, coffee, tea, chocolate, and specialty foods;

— Bosnian Handicrafts, selling jewelry, knitted, woolen, and other handcrafted items made by marginalized women in Bosnia;

— Blue Aye, offering handmade Guatemalan fabrics, purses, ceramics, jewelry and blankets to provide scholarships to children and young adults who would not otherwise be able to afford schooling;

— Kekeli Inc., started by a former Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana, offering carved wooden animals, Kente cloth — “It’s bold with colorful patterns,” said Kilgallon — ceramic items, musical instruments and jewelry. Their focus is education and humanitarian work;

— Hands Up for Haiti, selling products by the Women of Milot, a sewing cooperative, and Haiti Coffee, a small collective, to deliver direct care to children and their families in northern Haiti and provide medical and public-health programs;

— Studio 55, selling baskets from Ghana, Senegal and Madagascar;

— Fair Trade Connections, offering textiles, jewelry, home wares, and paper goods from Afghanistan, India, China, and Africa, to provide women with economic and personal empowerment and freedom from trafficking. Fair Trade Connections also supports Amani ya Juu, which through sewing helps African women displaced by political conflict, and Freeset, which provides training and jobs for women freed from the sex trade in Kolkata, India.

Who should shop at the Black Friday Fair trade Market?

“Anyone that needs a present for the holidays,” said Kilgallon. “The range is so broad. We have everything: musical instruments, woolens, beautiful jewelry, gorgeous scarves, cards, toys, coffee, chocolate.”

Last year, she said, the market attracted almost 1,000 people and more are expected over two days this year. Admission is free and the church will be selling beverages and baked goods to hungry shoppers. Children can participate in a fun and educational treasure hunt with fair-trade rewards, Kilgallon said.

“We sell slightly above cost,” said Kilgallon, explaining the extra goes to cover the expenses of running the market, for things like signs and cleaning.

“We volunteer and do this just to be part of it,” said Kilgallon.

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The Black Friday Fair Trade Market will be open on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 25 and 26, each day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Delmar Presbyterian Church at 585 Delaware Ave. in Delmar.

Two more fair-trade markets will follow: the Saratoga Fair Trade Market Expo on Saturday, Dec. 3, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Saratoga Springs City Center, and the St. Kateri Fair Trade Market on Saturday, Dec. 10, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 11, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2216 Rosa Road in Schenectady.