The Work of Our Hands in Pella is featuring a Fair Trade Rug Event at their store through Saturday.

Manager Amanda Johnson says they are featuring more than 300 rugs made in Pakistan, supporting numerous families in the region.

“We support over 850 families with this event in over 100 villages,” she says. “A lot of the people that are doing these, they are farmers and in the offseason they can hand knot.”

“It’s also providing work for women, because a lot of the looms are in their homes, so it provides employment opportunities for women, which in Pakistan is very limited.”

She says the products come through a fair trade organization.

“Fair trade is really the golden rule of doing business: doing unto others as you would have them do unto you,” she says. “In that, it’s providing the artisans a fair living wage for their work.”

Tonight at 6:30 p.m., all are invited to learn how rugs are made and how fair trade impacts the artisans’ lives at the store on Franklin Street.