It started in the Fall of 2013.
Rhonda LaBatt was browsing online when she came across an organization from Cambodia called Sak Saum, meaning dignity. Sak Saum is a rehabilitation program helping female survivors of sex trafficking and slave labor. In the program, each woman learns an artisanal craft like jewelry making or sewing, and the end products are then sold to support the program.
At the time, Sak Saum was looking for a partner – someone to purchase a box of products each month to sell to family, friends, local markets, wherever really. LaBatt purchased a box to try it out. She had recently quit her job as a teacher and was homeschooling her adopted daughter from Peru and thought it would be a good way to spend her spare time. She says she was shocked by how much she actually loved the pieces, and when they sold quickly to friends and family, she decided to buy more boxes and make it a business.
Photo courtesy of Redemption Market
But what started as a very small adventure to occupy her time, has now grown successfully and organically into a larger online boutique and pop–up shop in the Phoenix area. LaBatt and her three teenage daughters all work together to make Redemption Market what it is today.
The business now partners with 12 different artisanal organizations to sell women’s clothing items, soaps, accessories and more.
The best part?
Each organization supports a specific social justice cause – be it sex trafficking, slave labor or clean water programs, every item sold at Redemption Market helps someone in need.
“I think that all of us have this deep down desire to do something good (and) to make a difference,but for the most part, people just don’t know what to do or where to start,” LaBatt says. “So what we want to do is offer people the opportunity to help.”
As for the name…
“Each one of our causes deals with oppression, and in a lot of the cases, slavery and poverty, so it’s kind of dark and broken,” LaBatt says. “So the redemption is … bringing light where there was dark. Bringing hope where there is no hope.
LaBatt says she’s always felt very connected to social justice issues, and with a deep support for the shop local movement here in the Valley, it seems as if Redemption Market has been the perfect way for her to combine her passions into one.
She and her daughters attend the Phoenix Public Market every Saturday where they sell their plethora of items to college students, 20–somethings, 30–somethings and beyond. With seriously cute and in–season basket purses, home décor pieces and beaded jewelry accessories, you can pretty much consider this a more authentic, local version of Anthropologie – of course, without the $100 price tag. OH, and it supports great causes.
There’s really nothing to lose with this business.
LaBatt says she has a big vision for the future of Redemption Market, and while they’re not ready to expand just yet, she hopes one day to make it a big franchise with stores in malls everywhere.
Until then though, you seriously need to check them out on Saturdays in downtown Phoenix. You will not be disappointed.
Photo courtesy of Redemption Market
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