Packing Up Our Rug Trucks

Not Packing Book Bags…We’re Packing Rug Trucks!

ByBunyaad

Packing up our Rug Trucks

As kids pack up their book bags and head back to school, we here in the Bunyaad Rug Room are also busy packing up as we head into our Fair Trade Rug Event fall season.

What is a Rug Event?

To make sure that everyone gets to enjoy the fair trade rug experience, we take our rugs on the road and travel to over 30 fair trade locations every year. For each event we organize up to 350 rugs from 2’x3′ to 10’x14′ to create temporary mobile fair trade rug stores across the US and Canada. With the help of volunteers and staff at the hosting locations, we are able to set up and afterwards tear down our rug piles in roughly two hours!

Where are we heading this fall?

Fall always tends to be a busy travel season for us as it’s an excellent time for folks to buy rugs. Summer home improvement projects are coming to close and families are getting ready to spend more time inside as winter approaches. Many are thinking about sprucing up their homes as they prepare to host family for fall and winter holidays.

Because of this, our team stays busy crossing the highways. This fall there are 10 rug events in the US and four in Canada. In addition, several US and Canadian year round stores will be hosting special events, parties, sales, seminars and more.

Fall Events in the US

Alexandria, VA • Archbold, OH • Cincinnati-Harper’s Point, OH • Cleveland Heights, OH • Fairfield, PA • Ithaca, NY • Glen Ellyn, IL • Overland Park, KS • Rochester, NY • St. Paul, MN

Fall Events in Canada

Calgary, AB • Pointe Claire, QC • Port Colborne, ON • Saskatoon, SK

Remember that pickle puzzle?

In the US, our staff drives the rugs from location to location but in Canada, our fair trade friends and rug event coordinators at Ten Thousand Villages Canada coordinate the commercial trucking of rugs from store to store. It’s quite a skill to load both a truck and trailer with carpets so that unloading at the next event is not only organized and streamlined but also so that the truck drives with an even load.

In Canada where the rugs are commercially trucked, it’s an equally specialized skill as rugs are carefully packed into specially-sewn, pallette-size tyvek bags, sorted by size, so as to make unpacking at the next location as easy as possible.

I’ve been both on the truck loading end AND the tyvek-bag packing end…and honestly, both are equally challenging!

Why do we love rug event season?

Simply, we love watching these rugs find their forever homes. When you know that with each rug that finds a forever home, another rug is being made to replace it and more women like Rafia, Fauzia and Arshad have year-round work. You know it’s making a huge difference in their lives and in the lives of many others.

With every rug sold, more rugs go on the loom, more artisans are being fairly paid and hopefully, if we’re really doing our jobs well, more fairly paid jobs are being created in the villages of Pakistan.

So, off we go! Are we coming to your neighborhood?

Will we be seeing you soon? And remember, if you can’t make it to one of our fall events or year-round locations, Bunyaad rugs are always online at rugs.tenthousandvillages.com

 

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