Outdoor Retailer - June 2021 - 7

BGC's The
Marketplace will
make it easy to find
the brands its
members want to
support.
Leavitt, Montserrat A. Matehuala, and Sasha
McGhee joined together to build BGC.
FIVE YEARS LATER, THEY HAVE. WITH COMmunity,
time, and skills, resources-both
emotional and physical-can be pooled and
shared. BGC filed for LLC status and built a
membership structure that allowed Black
and Brown women and allies to host meetups
around the country to climb, share skills, and
find mentorship. In 2017, Lebewitz, with BGC,
and Mikhail Martin of Brothers of Climbing,
founded Color the Crag, an annual climbing
festival for people of color hosted at Horse
Pens 40 in Steele, Alabama. By 2018, BGC had
corporate sponsors-well-known climbing
brands like Scarpa, Mountain Hardwear, and
Evolv-and Lebewitz saw another opportunity
to connect people with more resources to
people with less.
Sponsors will often offer discounts on their
HEADLINES
Building Abundance
The Marketplace is Brown Girls Climb's new online
platform that highlights BIPOC-, women-, and queer-owned
businesses. It will help consumers choose to make a real
difference in creating economic equality.
By Endria Isa Richardson
THE FIRST TIME I SPEAK WITH BETHANY
Lebewitz, the founder of Brown Girls Climb
(BGC), about the launching of BGC's new
platform, The Marketplace, I learn a couple
of things. The first is something I already
know but am grateful to be reminded of: BGC,
a community of Black, Asian, Latinx, and
Indigenous climbers from around the world-
with and without money or access to money,
and of various abilities-will never have to
use the word " diversity " in the ways that some
all-white climbing communities seem to have
to use the word " diversity. " The second thing I
learn is that the women of BGC understand the
relationship between abundance and community
in deep, complex, and grateful ways.
When Lebewitz started the Instagram account
@browngirlsclimb in 2016, Trump had
just been elected. She felt isolated as a woman
of color living and working in D.C. and turned
to climbing for community. Even though she
saw a lot of other Black and Brown women
climbing at her gym, they weren't necessarily
part of the same community. Looking for a
reason to introduce herself, she posted a few
photos online, tagged #BrownGirlsClimb and
#ColorTheCrag, and started asking people
at her gym if she could share their photos too.
The hashtags quickly caught on, connecting
hundreds and then thousands of climbers of
color across the U.S. and the world. A group of
women, including Lebewitz, Grace Anderson,
Jael Berger, Gabrielle Dickerson, Laura
Edmonson, Chela Garcia Irlando, Brittany
gear to affiliates, and BGC decided to pass
those discounts on to its members-the Black
and Brown women who could really use them.
At the same time, BGC was already crowdsourcing
and researching BIPOC-owned
products and businesses. BGC began sharing
its lists as a BIPOC holiday gift guide. " People
love that list, " says Lebewitz. " We love it. We
get to share cool companies. Companies love
it because they don't have the same Instagram
reach, so we expand their reach to outdoor
folks and travel folks. "
THE MARKETPLACE, BGC'S NEW PLATFORM
that soft-launched in November, combines
these two aspects of BGC's business and community
model. It offers climbers access to
discounted rates on climbing and technical
gear from well-known outdoor brands and
highlights brands that are BIPOC-, women-,
or queer-owned, or have been vetted by BGC
as environmentally or socially conscious.
When it launches fully-expected to be in the
fall of 2021-The Marketplace will be open to
the public.
As someone who grew up without an abundance
of money, Lebewitz knows what can
become possible when money is shared-
more people benefit, rather than just a few.
June 2021/ OUTDOOR RETAILER 7
Lauren Danilek
http:// https://www.browngirlsclimb.com/ http:// https://www.instagram.com/browngirlsclimb/ http:// https://www.browngirlsclimb.com/
Outdoor Retailer - June 2021

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