Día de los Muertos-themed arts market highlights small businesses

Road closures in Chapel Hill are typically less than ideal, but attendees of this past Saturday's Festifall didn't seem to mind as they flocked to the many stands on Church Street. 

The event was Día de los Muertos-themed, with various Latino small businesses in booths up and down the street, dancers performing in traditional Mexican clothing and a massive ofrenda, a colorful altar used to honor deceased loved ones. The holiday was on Nov. 1-2 this year. This is the first year the Town of Chapel Hill has hosted a themed Festifall.

One of the businesses that took place in the event was Noonday Collection, a fair trade company and Certified B Corporation — a for-profit business that meets high standards of environmental performance and transparency — that partners with artisans globally to sell their handcrafted products. Katherine Doehring, an ambassador for the company, had a stand displaying various jewelry made by artisans from Mexico, Ecuador and Guatemala.

“Our mission is to partner with artisan groups all over the world to make beautiful, handmade, artisan, indigenous craft and to come alongside them to help them grow their businesses and make them economically sustainable, so that they can create living-wage jobs for more and more people, and that it can be one way that we can help alleviate poverty in the world," she said.

Doehring said she is passionate about indigenous craft and sharing that knowledge with others, a big reason why she works with Noonday Collection. She that she liked that Festifall was celebrating Hispanic heritage and helping local Latino community members feel welcome.

The Wishes Co. had a booth right next to Noonday Collections, and Teresa Monteiro, the owner and founder, said the Día de los Muertos event was her second time at a market, and that it was a pleasure to be there.

Monteiro said that to start The Wishes Co., she went through Launch Chapel Hill at the Junction, which houses UNC's Innovate Carolina. The company specializes in personalized gift baskets with various exclusive and local products, like Carolina Blue chocolate. The company is committed to hiring artisans with varying disabilities. 

Monteiro said the company strives to buy from local suppliers, and also ones that employ people with special needs, such as B3 Coffee and Extraordinary Ventures.

“For us, the best customers are the ones who potentially order multiples of the same because that’s really when I can employ individuals, say, with autism, who love repetition and do really well at repeating the same task, and we love that,” she said. 

One stand in the middle of the street stood out, as the smell of fresh flowers wafted from it. Those flowers were marigolds, the traditional flower for Día de los Muertos. They were fresh from Mu Ta K' Paw Garden, located within the Transplanting Traditions Community Farm off of Jones Ferry Road.

The farm was started by Burmese refugees who wanted to plant vegetables they were missing in the United States. One of the people at the stand, Luis Cruz, was there with several members of his family because his sister-in-law and her mom started the garden together. Since marrying his wife, Cruz said the garden has become a family endeavor, and he has been involved almost full-time for two years.

Cruz and his family celebrate Día de los Muertos, and his favorite part is building the ofrenda to remember people who have passed on.

“The tradition is to put things that, if somebody left you beforehand, like a relative, if he likes mole, then we make the mole and put it out for them, and it's just really nice to remember,” he said.

Cruz said the marigolds were planted with seeds from Mexico, which are hard to find, so he likes to be able to give them to people.

Festifall was the first market Cruz had ever been to, and he said he didn't know that it existed until one of his sisters saw that they were looking for vendors, so they applied to come.

The marigolds were flying out of the stand throughout the afternoon, the vibrant orange and yellow bouquets cradled in the arms of several attendees as they went from stand to stand. Marigolds became a symbol of this year's market: an unexpected surprise for Cruz and his family. 

“It was actually very exciting, because we didn't have any high hopes for coming here,” he said.

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