The Marketplace is a small gift boutique selling beautiful and unique gifts from locals and around the world, with 100% of the proceeds going towards supporting families adopting Deaf children and Deaf children born into families.
The Signs for Hope Global Marketplace made its humble beginnings in Charles’ and Becky’s home in 2011. After God’s call to “coordinate the adoption of Deaf orphans in the world” in 2008, Becky began asking Him where He wanted her to see Deaf orphans, up close and personal for the first time. It took several months of asking until He made it clear, on multiple occasions. He wanted her to go to Liberia, West Africa to see them. She did that in June 2010 and made six trips there by early 2014, when Ebola struck.
After that first trip to Liberia, Becky decided it would be prudent for her to bring back Liberian crafts to sell to her friends and family to help fund the trips, as they were costly. She continued to do this from her home, several times a year. In 2016, the Signs for Hope ASL-Immersion Family Retreats began, with a need to fundraise for hearing families who had adopted Deaf children and Deaf volunteers to come together, for a time. The sales from these shopping events were a great support for the family retreats.
In late 2019 Becky and Charles renovated their downstairs and “The Marketplace” took over two rooms. Now it could stay open all year long. By this time Becky had traveled to several countries, on multiple occasions, for Deaf adoption trips and to visit Deaf schools, bringing beautiful crafts back from each country to sell.
2020 (Covid) closed The Marketplace, for a time, but Vandora and Becky, mostly Vandora, worked on getting The Marketplace online. We had many gifts and it was arduous work.
In late 2020 and early 2021, we watched as a beautiful building took shape next to the local coffee shop, here in Fairview. Becky had been looking for over a year for home for the first ASL Home to be established in. Could this be it?
When the rental sign went up Becky quickly got online and called the listing agent and asked if they could see it. They could! Charles, Vandora and Becky met the agent there the next Friday. It was even more beautiful on the inside, but it did not have a full bath or a kitchen. It could not be the ASL Home. What would God want with this beautiful building at this time?
In 2018, God had clearly led Becky to begin thinking of Signs for Hope’s activities moving close to home. Up until then the focus was on Deaf children anywhere, for the most part. God began setting the foundation for making Signs for Hope a local presence, too, and to become a trauma-informed organization from the top down. In late 2019, He started by adding additional people to Signs for Hope, locally.
As His vision began to unfold He allowed Becky to think about the future, where she envisioned a place, locally, where hearing families with adopted Deaf children and Deaf families do life together, all in sign. But she would have to raise awareness for the need for such before it would come to pass.
The Signs for Hope Global Marketplace would be that place! It opened on Mother’s Day weekend in 2021! Many family members and friends came to support it!
Since Covid halted Becky’s travels, her daughter Rachel began seeking out local vendors for their foods and crafts and Becky tapped into Fair Trade Federation vendors selling wholesale and others. The Marketplace is a small gift boutique selling beautiful and unique gifts from locals and around the world, with 100% of the proceeds going towards supporting families adopting Deaf children and Deaf children born into families.
