Walls and tables are decorated with handmade crafts, baked goods, pet accessories and more at the Grateful Goods Community Vendors Market in Sierra Vista on a recent Saturday.

Grateful Goods, a community market, started in October 2023 to help small businesses gain visibility, said owner Kat Hardy.

Since it opened nearly three years ago, the market has grown, with dozens of small, local vendors selling their wares each month and proceeds from operations going to local charities.

“Giving back to the community has always been really important to me,” Hardy said.

In 2023, Hardy purchased a warehouse as an investment property. She added rugs, fresh paint, newer lighting and heat and air conditioning, turning the space into Grateful Goods, where small business owners could introduce and sell their craft to the community.

At first, Hardy had only eight vendors at the market. Now, more than 50 vendors are there each week.

“I have vendors that have been with me since the very beginning. They’re amazing, and they started with half a table, and now they have evolved into something great,” she said.

Vendors of Grateful Goods

A variety of businesses sell their products at the market, from baked goods and tortilla chips to crocheted plushies and handmade crafts.

Aida Tona sells macarons, cinnamon rolls and cookies.

“I’ve always liked baking, and I enjoy the people that are here,” she said

Also among the creations on display at the monthly event are handmade buttons, mugs and clothing made by University of Arizona alum Jessie Feller.

“Jessie’s Buttons is like a souvenir shop in a way, but it’s all custom to order, like a truly personalized souvenir shop,” she said.

Feller, 23, now the band director at Sabino High School, started her business as a UA student and now runs a micro business selling a variety of merchandise at Grateful Goods, where craftmakers and bakers can spotlight their work to the community.

She said her background in music helped shape her products’ designs.

“I do have products on the shelf [at Grateful Goods] and a lot of them are music themed,” she said. “Being a music teacher, I kind of just theme a lot of my stuff around that.”

But she’s also happy to customize to meet customers’ needs.

“I can customize any of my products for anybody however they want it, if it’s for a member of their family, or a group or a club,” she said.

For Feller, shopping from small businesses like hers supports local families and helps the community.

“I would love to stay at my vendor spot where I’m at right now in Sierra Vista and just kind of broaden my audience, the products I sell and grow the business in general,” she said.

Husband and wife duo Chris and Mary Feller, no relation to Jessie Feller, are the owners of Festive Crafting Company.

They returned to Grateful Goods for their second month to sell an assortment of handmade crafts.

Mary Feller, 59, a kitchen manager at Tombstone High School, heard about the market from her boss after recognizing her talent to create holiday decorations.

“He kept telling me, ‘You need to sell it, you need to sell it,’” she said.

She finds inspiration from Facebook, where she often discovers ideas that lead to creating the crafts she makes.

“I saw people doing the snowglobe cups, and I thought they were so cool so I just started making different types,” Mary Feller said.

She also makes apothecary bottles, reefs, candles and food-inspired crafts.

She pointed to a glass bowl of Fruit Loops coated in wax.

“Those were my favorite because they smell like Fruit Loops cereal, it makes me hungry,” she said.

Donations to nonprofits

Feller is one of the many vendors whose table fees go towards the market’s donations to be paid forward to a different nonprofit organization each month.

Monthly donations are how Grateful Goods repays the community.

Table fees are donated to nonprofit organizations as a way to give back to the community.

“I started doing ten percent and now I donate 20 percent of what I collect for table fees to a different nonprofit every month,” Hardy said.

Last year, the market donated to 11 organizations, including the Warrior Healing Center, Cochise Serving Veterans and Buena High School Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.

Grateful Goods Community Vendors Market can be found at 112 N. Sixth St., Sierra Vista on the second and fourth Saturday of each month. For more information, visit the Grateful Goods website.

Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism