By Pamela Standing | Project Leader
Meet Sarah Agaton Howes (www.houseofhowes.com) an Anishinaabe artist, teacher, and emerging community organizer from Fond du Lac Reservation in Minnesota. Widely known for her handmade regalia and moccasins featuring Ojibwe floral designs, which are in demand across Minnesota and Wisconsin. Sarah is a multi-dimensional artist working in the traditional and applying those designs to the contemporary.
Sarah recently joined our statewide “Buy Native” working group. She is excited and shared what the Minnesota Indian Business Alliance (MNIBA) is doing is music to her ears, she has been waiting to be part of a movement like this. More importantly, Sarah noted that when a person buys from a native entrepreneur, their purchase impacts not only that individual, but their family and their community.
MNIBA contracted with Sarah to design more logos for the “Buy Native” campaign. She created works of art, which will be on bumper stickers, clings for windows and other uses and t-shirts with educational Indigenous messaging. In the next phase of our “Buy Native” campaign we plan on making the signage bi-lingual using one of Sarah’s favorite words in her language; "Indadaawemin" We Barter.
Her canoe image represents native trade and commerce and celebrates the role of the canoe in trade, with the flowers representing abundance from what we trade and exchange.
To celebrate the launch of MNIBA’s statewide “Buy Native” campaign, MNIBA is offering six cross-promotion micro-grants, totaling $5,000 to native businesses and artisans. The grant is a one-time award and does not require the award recipients to match or pay back any portion of the awarded funds.
The purpose of MNIBA's "Buy Native" cross-promotion marketing grant is to support the growth of native business by bringing native businesses and artisans together to create an opportunity to expand into new markets, launch a new product or service, create an online presence, and much more. Grant awards will be announced October 15, 2018.
This would not be possible without the generous support of donors like you! Chi Miigwech!
From your friends and allies at the Minnesota Indian Business Alliance
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