Pacific Northwest Tour -Olympia, WA

On Monday, November 17th Robert and I flew into Seattle and drove straight down to Oympia, WA for our first event at Traditions Café and World Folk Art. It's a fabulous café, fair trade store and community hub run by Dick Meyer and it's also at the heart of the South Sound Clean Clothes Campaign, a coalition of students, union members, people of faith, and concerned citizens raising awareness about sweatshop conditions.

The event attracted 75 people -it was truly packed and we had an amazing discussion! There were some folks from Bridges not Walls, who talked about Tacoma's ICE detention center, where they hold weekly candlelight vigils. Other audience members described the law that allows the border patrol to conduct raids and arrests within 100 miles of a border and that, as a result, there are often controls and checkpoints in the region. Some folks didn't even know there were raids in Olympia, or that this detention center even existed right next door...

It was beautiful to be discussing all of this right there at Traditions, a place based on fair trade and packed with sweatfree goods and clothing. Special thanks to Beth Provo for letting us stay at her place that evening! Be sure to visit Marigold, Beth's hip fair trade clothing store.