Zodiac Events coordinates trade shows throughout the Treasure Valley to help small businesses showcase their products.
The Hearts Afire show is Zodiac's first-ever Valentine's Day-themed show and dozens of local businesses showed up to showcase their unique arts, crafts and food.
"You know it is a great feeling to not just support our communities here in the United States and Boise Idaho, but also in other regions of the world," said Rachelle Giles of Barkin Buddha Java.
This local coffee roasting company gets coffee beans from 15 different companies and they will ship them to your door on the same day they grind the beans, they also support three women-owned plantations in Ethiopia, Mexico and Peru.
"And the best part about Barkin Budddah Java is the animals we support here in our local communities," said Giles. "We are currently working with West Valley Humane Society."
We also ran into Ash's Rock Stash who had some beautiful fluorescent art along with minerals and rocks, but that's not all they were selling as young entrepreneur Aiden Ludwig also sold his Cool Crayon Creations.
“So I buy some Crayola Crayons which I am obsessed with then I melt them in my mold and they pop out since they are silicon, I just put them in the bags then I price them and I go to these shows and I sell them," said Ludwig. "It’s really fun and it’s exciting."
The Hearts Afire show marks the first of five different shows that will happen this year with the next one also at the Meridian Senior Center on April 23.
But this show also serves another purpose as the Center at the Park promotes active lifestyles and social events for seniors, which might be more important now more than ever.
"We have a lot of seniors who feel very isolated e had to close during the pandemic," said Lisa Hansen of the Meridian Senior Center. "We serve a vulnerable population, however, when we opened back up they were ready to come back, they were ready to start doing things so we have really improved our activities our outings so they could have that social interaction."
