On Family Day, Community Living Guelph Wellington is hosting a market to bring 25 local makers, crafters, artists and small businesses together to celebrate each other's talent while supporting local.
The event, Support Local Market is about local vendors coming together says Annie Knight, marketing and development lead at CLGW.
Knight says the market is a fantastic opportunity for some adults with developmental disabilities to showcase their own social enterprises.
“It's kind of like a cool mesh of neighbours supporting neighbours,” says Knight about the market which will celebrate 65 years of the CLGW at the Holody Centre for Sport and Recreation at 8 Royal Rd. from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The market is a revamped version of the open house held by the CLGW which would allow community members to visit and learn about ARC industries, a workshop that was a part of CLGW which later closed.
Knight says since the closure of the workshop, the focus of CLGW has been on community.
“The people we support are contributing members in our communities, alongside and with their neighbours and friends. The Support Local Market is that where neighbours, friends and talented folks from our community come together to support each other. Whether it’s a local small business, a social enterprise, or the people we support, we come together with a common goal of supporting local,” says Knight.
With large spaces like a commercial kitchen, a gymnasium, and different locations across Guelph and Wellington County that the CLGW uses, Knight says the event is a way to say ‘the folks that we support are your neighbours, they're people in the community that can contribute.’
Knight says one of the main focuses in the last couple of years has been to find a way to mesh the support the CLGW offers with the community and one of the ways they have been doing that is by allowing community members to access these events.
“We try to find opportunities for people that we support to participate in every way,” says Knight.
“Were hoping a whole bunch of people come out.”
Knight says the event will see people from the CLGW, Live & Learn Centre, Autism Connections Guelph among other service organizations for individuals living with disabilities share the market with vendors in the community.
“It's not just folks with disabilities as vendors here, it's really truly is about community and everybody having a place at the table,” says Knight.
