On a cold Wednesday night last year, 450 people walked through the historic Dunbar Pavilion to kick off Black History Month alongside local nonprofits and vendors.
It was the inaugural Merchant and Mission-Focused Marketplace, a celebration of Black-owned businesses organized by A Better Community (ABC).
“When we did it last year, it was an energy of happiness but also a hunger to want to continue,” says Trehon Cockrell-Coleman, who runs ABC with his wife Carmishun Coleman.
The pair are planning to do it all over again this year — but this time, it’s not solely the result of the very community-driven couple. The event is made possible because of the gracious help of the folks at The Dunbar’s nonprofit coalition, along with the title sponsor Automated Presort Services (APS) and Digital Print.
Carmishun Coleman and Trehon Cockrell-Coleman are the founders of A Better Community.
“It started with a seed but now people in the community are coming on board,” Cockrell-Coleman says. “It’s not just a Trehon and Carmishun show anymore. Last year, it was a husband and wife putting things together, but this year a business and nonprofit helped pull it off. A community bonded together to make it possible.”
This year’s Merchant and Mission-Focused Marketplace will take place 5-7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5 featuring more than 30 vendors at The Dunbar, 325 W. Second St. You can shop candles and rice krispies all while meeting the people behind community services including doctors, DJs and the Tucson Educational Empowerment for Minorities. Poems will be read to kids and JujuBey International African Dance Ensemble will perform.
“What makes it so genuine is everything you see in those two hours is for Tucson by Tucson,” Cockrell-Coleman says. “The outcome is beautiful when you see so many people come out on a Wednesday — just to get people to come out after a long day of work or school, when you have work the next day and kids have school the next day.”
Nearly 500 people attended 2024’s Merchant and Mission-Focused Marketplace.
Vendors don’t have to pay a dime to participate in the market, thanks in part to the sponsorship of APS and access to The Dunbar that the Colemans call “the glue” to their programming. The Colemans don’t make any money from the event either.
“We don’t want a percentage (from the vendors) or anything — we just want someone rooting for them,” Cockrell-Coleman says. “When Carmishun and I really talked through it, one of the main reasons we wanted to do it again is because we wanted a space of unity to kick off Black History Month. It wasn’t that we just specialize in a vendor space. It’s what we can do to show unity and give people an opportunity to come together and meet people they may not know even existed.”
While this is ABC’s largest event of the year, the organization hosts monthly happenings, mostly at The Dunbar, that range from mixers to bingo nights to a backpack giveaway during back-to-school season to philanthropic outings at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona.
“When Carmishun and I started this, we wanted to make sure people who had been longing for community could arrive at that,” Cockrell-Coleman says. “We remember coming to Tucson 10, 12 years ago looking for community and couldn’t really find it. These events are community starters, or igniters, to say you’re not the only one at your job or at school. Every community needs community. There are people in Tucson really looking and longing for community.
“If you don’t have somebody galvanizing, you can easily fill your own island by yourself,” he says. “But I think life is better in community.”
The Merchant and Mission-Focused Marketplace is a celebration organized by A Better Community.
