Our friend Rebecca Fadner got a birthday present Tuesday from eBay. A national online ad campaign launched featuring Kingdom Ventures Inc., the fair trade retailer she runs with her husband, Glenn.
The eBay Thanks You campaign launched Tuesday with videos on its YouTube eBay channel of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, designer Jonathan Adler, two for-profit companies, a customer and the Ogden-based Kingdom Ventures.
Glenn and Rebecca Fadner, who run Kingdom Ventures, say they’ve already watched the video a dozen or more times and are pleased with the final outcome.
They didn’t know what to expect. eBay contacted the Fadners in June and asked if they would be part of the video campaign. They don’t know how they were chosen and didn’t hear anything for more than a month, so they figured the project fell through.
Then in August, after agreeing to a date, eBay surprised them when 15 people “descended on our home,” to spend a day with them documenting their life stories and following them around Rochester to their favorite spots.
The final cut (see below) is a little more than a minute and a half.It tells the story of these high school sweethearts who decided they wanted to spend more time together after their children were grown and make a footprint with their retirements.
“We wanted to work together, to travel and make a difference in people’s lives,” says Glenn Fadner, who said he’d be in trouble if he disclosed his wife’s age on her birthday.
The two founded the company in 2005. Suppliers include Cambodian women rebuilding their lives after escaping from sex trafficking, and Kenyan artisans striving to build villages.
Featured on the eBay video is their Nicaraguan business that supplies mostly pine needle baskets. Glenn Fadner says when it’s a bad crop year, the families of the 27 women involved are hard hit. But through the basket selling, the women have been able to keep their children in school and buy solar panels for their homes, allowing a working light for the first time.
Placemats, baskets, trivets and other available handmade goods come from Nicaragua, Honduras, Thailand, Cambodia, Kenya and Turkey. The Fadners visit one country every year to meet with the artisans.
On Nov. 1st the Fadners are opening their seasonal forefront at 2542 Ridgeway Ave., the same location as last year. It will be open until Dec. 29. Goods are also available at kingdom-ventures.com.
