PARK CITY, Utah — For nearly three decades, the Adopt-a-Native-Elder organization has brought food, medical supplies and other essentials to elders living on the Navajo Land.
One of the ways they are able to help is through the Navajo Rug Show and Sale, where elders weave rugs and sell them, and receive 100% of the proceeds.
“This is a hard time on the reservation food-wise,” said Linda Meyers, founder of Adopt-a-Native-Elder. “There’s a lot without the assistance of SNAP, so everything will benefit them.”
Meyers started the organization after she saw a documentary that made her feel sympathetic to the plight of the indigenous people.
“It talked about the plight of 10,000 Navajo being removed from their homeland,” she said. “It deeply touched my heart, so I wrote an article in the local Park Record.”
Wanting to help, Meyers put up signs in her Park City Main Street store for people to donate food to the Navajo. When she was delivering food, an elder gave her a rug to hang up in her store. One by one, she sold those rugs and brought all the proceeds back to the elders.
“The next time I went down there with food, she had two sisters and they had two rugs and they asked me if I could take it back and sell them,” she said.
Eventually, Meyers had so many rugs that she reached out to local organizations and places where she could get help selling the rugs.
“The original elders that came here, they’re in their 90s to 104, so they built this,” she said. “They have sold artwork for years just in trade for hay and for food, and all of a sudden people were coming up and saying they were putting them in their homes.”
The rug show begins on Friday with a VIP event at 4 p.m. that requires a ticket. At 6 p.m., the doors will open to the public for free. On Saturday and Sunday, the doors open at 10 a.m., and it’s free to the community. (Maybe embed this link somewhere) https://www.deervalley.com/things-to-do/events/adopt-a-native-elder-rug-show
