It takes money to fight money.
This is the mantra of the Mosaic Collective founder Jennifer Olson.
Mosaic Collective provides a fair-trade shop where students and community members can come to buy fair-trade and handcrafted goods curated by survivors of human trafficking. The proceeds from these purchases go back to the people who made the items, helping to empower and protect them from vulnerable situations.
Though human trafficking is an extremely profitable industry, Olson knows that every dollar invested in ethically-made items contributes to the fight against that evil. Mosaic may be a young organization — it opened Sept. 11, 2021 — but it is already making strides to fight human trafficking.
Inside the cozy shop, located inside of Ayven Avenue Boutique on Fifth Street in downtown Lynchburg, sit baskets, textiles, wooden boards and bowls, candles and jewelry. Big windows allow light into the room, and a mirror opposite the windows reflects that light, making the jewelry glitter.
The entire space, which is about the size of a typical dorm room, feels clean and airy. The stickers underneath the products feature tags that say Haiti, Nepal or Africa. So much of the world fits into one little shop in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Olson’s heart behind this project is the goal that survivors of human trafficking and similar situations would be able to find work that empowers them. For those coming out of trafficking situations, the need to find steady, non-exploitative employment is imperative. The brands that Olson features in Mosaic Collective help victims do just that.
“I just learned about the need of survivors being employed — how hard it is for them to find employment and stay employed to keep them from going back to the life that they were in,” Olson said. “[I] then also started learning more about how our products are made and how every dollar we spend really does shape the world we live in, for the good or for the bad.”
Olson, who graduated with a global studies degree from Liberty in 2018, found herself filled with passion for helping survivors in high school. After accepting Jesus into her heart her junior year, she watched a documentary on an American woman who survived sex trafficking. That, she said, inspired her to do something to help.
“And so, in listening to the vulnerabilities that led her [the woman featured in the documentary] up to where she was, I was like, ‘Oh wow, that could have been me,’” she said. “And so that kind of sparked the passion for me to want to do something about what was going on, so I started doing different things in high school, like awareness events and stuff.”
That series of events led Olson to start her first business venture called Jars of Hope. She sold necklaces with tiny jars as pendants. Each necklace represented an organization fighting sex trafficking or advocating for foster care, according to the brand’s Instagram page.
For now, Mosaic Collective will be housed in Ayven Avenue Boutique until December. In 2022, Olson will reevaluate the placement of the shop. She has big dreams for the Collective — dreams that require more than just a place to purchase fair trade products.
“Eventually, I’d like to have my own shop,” she said. “And I’d like for it to actually have all the fair-trade items that we source but also have a lounge and bar area in the back that encourages people to stay and linger, and so hopefully that will create conversations about why we have these products in the shop.”
Other goals include a quarterly journal, where Olson will write about the different locations in which the products are made, and a thrift shop that gives all its proceeds to organizations fighting human trafficking.
Currently, Olson sees the store as a practical and straightforward way for people to promote fair-trade and ethically-made products.
“I want this store to be a conversation piece for people but also a way for them to be like, ‘Okay, I just went in and bought my accessories and it all helps refugees … and I’m breaking that cycle,’” she said. “Just encouraging people that they have a place where they can make a difference.”
Students can visit Mosaic Collective at 409 Fifth St. in downtown Lynchburg between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Smith is the A-section copy editor. Follow her on Twitter at @jssmith_jss.