When somebody sees a pot or basket from La Vida Verde, they see the intricate artistry of an imported hand-made product. Michael and Kris Barker see something more.

They see not only the fingerprints pushed into the clay pots, they see into the heart of the artists who have struggled in impoverished countries, and the difference that’s been made in the artisans everyday lives.

The Barkers have gone beyond paying their artisans fair and living wages — they have reached out to a community and changed lives.

Now, the South Whidbey community has a chance to pitch in to help children in a small potter’s village in Nicaragua.

The Barkers are hosting a fundraising event July 1 that will feature food, entertainment, an auction and an import sale.

“We like to make it fun and have the public become aware of why and what we are doing,” Michael Barker said.

The second annual fundraiser will further enhance the support the Barkers, and the South Whidbey community, started last year for artisan families in Central America.

“We are hoping to make money to send to the school, create awareness and have a great community event,” Kris Barker said.

Changing paths

Michael and Kris Barker’s career transformation started about 15 years ago when they were teachers in Southern California.

It was during a vacation in Costa Rica when the couple’s thoughts turned to work. They came up with an idea for a new business: Bringing hand-crafted Costa Rican items back to the states and selling the products to stores in California.

“We did it initially because we really liked Costa Rica and wanted to go back,” Kris Barker said.

The Barkers had no idea the business would become what it has; their first business deal was far from conventional.

“We literally brought four rocking chairs back with us in the plane, then went around to stores with them in the trunk of our car and said ‘Do you want this?’” Barker said.

The couple made the sale, and a business was born.

The Barker’s business, La Vida Verde, grew quickly. First, it was just secondary to the couple’s teaching careers.

But La Vida Verde kept growing. It grew from the couple’s backyard, to a house, to a warehouse.

“It grew from about a half-dozen products to about 1,000 products,” Michael Barker said. “Eventually, La Vida Verde became hectic enough that I had to stop teaching, or make a choice between one or the other, and I had a pretty sound passion for doing this work.”

Today, the Barker’s business is based in Freeland. It imports products from five Latin American countries — Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Peru, Colombia and Honduras — and distributes the hand-crafted goods to stores and mail-order businesses around the world.

A fair trade

All of the artisans who supply goods for La Vida Verde are paid a living wage for their work. This is part of a commitment the Barkers have to the artisans: A fair trade agreement.

Child labor is prohibited, for example, and the working conditions of the craftspeople must be safe and clean.

The Barkers said fair trade — not to be confused with “free trade” — is a no-brainer.

“Fair trade is basically, let’s treat people like human beings, not below what I would treat you or you would treat me,”

l Barker said.

“It actually seems pretty silly that we would have to have fair trade agreements anyway,” Kris Barker said.

But, unfortunately, not all businesses that import foreign goods abide by fair trade rules.

The Barkers said when they started their business 14 years ago, fair trade was not something average customers had heard about.

Now, they said, the situation is changing.

“People have to make a choice how they want to spend their money,” Barker said.

Customers are starting to think about where their products are coming from and how they are made.

“Stores get a lot of requests for fair trade items from customers, so that is an external incentive for the stores,” Michael Barker said. “Another incentive is the one that we think the same — that people should be treated fairly.”

A COUNTRY STRUGGLING

At the time the Barker’s started their business, Costa Rica’s northern neighbor, Nicaragua, was embroiled in conflict. Many Nicaraguans had fled their war-torn country to stay in Costa Rica.

It was there in Costa Rica the Barkers found Nicaraguan pottery.

“That was our entry into Nicaragua, by happenstance really,” Barker said.

Later when the conflict subsided, many Nicaraguans returned home and the Barkers were able to enter the country.

“We have been going there for about 12 years now,” Barker said. “It’s changed a whole lot.”

However, the now-peaceful country is still struggling with poverty.

Nicaragua is one of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest countries. There is widespread underemployment and a heavy external debt burden, and the distribution of income is one of the most unequal on the globe.

In spite of their struggles, Nicaraguans are slowly rebuilding their economy.

THE POTTER’S SCHOOL

About three years ago, the Barker’s found out about a newly-built school in the Nicaraguan village of San Juan de Oriente. It was called El Alfarero, which translates into “The Potter’s School.”

Most of the residents of San Juan de Oriente are artisans.

“It is essentially a pottery village,” Kris Barker said. “For most people, their entire income is based on making ceramics.”

The San Juan de Oriente village is also home to many of the La Vida Verde artisans.

“Michael came back talking about this school that the village had just started,” Barker said. “It was started by a lot of the potters that we import from for their children.”

The school’s yearly tuition is $37. The Barkers said that although that may not seem like a whole lot of money in the U.S., it is big money in Nicaragua.

There were families in the village that could not afford to send their children to the school.

The Barkers initial thought was to take action.

“We thought, ‘What can we do? How can we help the school?’” Kris Barker recalled.

RAISING FUNDS

The couple decided to hold a fundraiser for the school on Whidbey Island, their new home.

“It was one of those things that we really didn’t realize we were getting into, and how much work it would be,” Barker said.

They launched the first fundraising campaign last summer at the La Vida Verde warehouse in Freeland.

In spite of rain, many local community members, including Whidbey Island artists, showed up for the event.

“We had a great deal of local support,” Barker said.

And that’s great, the couple said, because they don’t want to compete with local artisans. Instead, they would like to be part of the local art community. The Barkers said they were happy with the warm reception of their cause by both local businesses and local artisans.

“The Whidbey community really is quite supportive of the arts,” Michael Barker said. “Which is one of the many reasons why we moved here.”

With the help of island residents, the Barkers were able to raise $3,000 for the school at last year’s fundraiser.

AN UNPLANNED DILEMMA

Then, there was a new problem. The couple faced the unexpected dilemma of how to disperse the funds.

“Afterwards, we had this money, and we hadn’t done anything like this before,” Michael Barker said.

“What we found out was that if you bring $3,000 into a very poor community and you don’t do it well, you can create more problems than you are trying to solve,” he said.

“So we had to go much slower in the disbursement and really think about how we wanted to do this,” Kris Barker added.

So in November of last year, Kris Barker and her aunt took off for Nicaragua with the mission to figure out how the money could be funneled back into the community without disrupting people’s lives.

AN ENTHUSIASTIC WELCOME

Barker was overwhelmed by the appreciation of those at the Nicaraguan school.

It was the children’s summer break, but that didn’t stop them from welcoming the visitors into their village.

“All of the kids turned out and they put us up on stage,” Barker said. “They sang for us, they danced for us. They fed us and they wrote poems. The principal of the school had made all of the dresses for the dancing.”

Whatever doubts the Barkers might have had about the fundraising effort quickly disappeared.

After taking a tour of the school, Barker and her aunt saw that El Alfarero had many books, but very little additional school-related items. The visitors then used their own money to buy school supplies.

“We went on a shopping spree,” Barker said.

They bought staplers, markers, rulers, soccer balls, basketballs and more.

Also during the week-long trip, Kris Barker was able to give the El Alfarero teachers and administrators a bonus with the funds they had raised in South Whidbey. They were able to set up a bank account for the school with the help of a local non-profit, and they started setting up a budget for the upcoming school year.

And, after finding that some families were able to send one of their children to school but couldn’t afford to send others, the Barkers also set up a tiered system for student scholarships. This way both full and partial scholarships could be given to the children of San Juan de Oriente.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

After the Barker’s fundraising venture, about 40 new kids were able to attend the school, and each teacher received a 50 percent salary increase.

“Which was great because they were making a lot less than the public school teachers,” Barker said.

The Barkers have also talked with Nicaraguan community organizations about ways to make the school more sustainable so it won’t have to depend on outside help.

For now, the Barker’s will to continue raise money to create a solid base for the school’s operations and the scholarship account for the children.

No matter what happens, the couple said, they will always be involved with the school in one way or another.

The Barkers hope that this year, with the help of South Whidbey Islanders, they can continue to make a difference in the lives of the Nicaraguan artisan families.

“It is for the future,” Kris Barker said. “It is for the kids.”