'Wellness After Dark' night market in Seattle highlights women and BIPOC-owned businesses

Next week in Seattle, you can check out a night market highlighting women owned and BIPOC owned businesses. It's called Wellness After Dark. The best part, it's for a good cause with proceeds going to Project Girl, a nonprofit empowering young women of color. To learn more about the event, we're joined by Olympia Edwards, the founder of Project Girl and Nikki Reyes of City Sweats. Thank you guys for being here. Thank you. Yeah, it's so fun to have you here. Before we get to the event, Olympia, can you tell us a little bit about Project Girl? Girl and all that you guys do for these young women and the community. Yes, so Project Girl Mentoring Program is a program I started 14 years ago where we help girls of color, help them with an avenue of finding healthy coping skills and life skills. We do that within seven to eight different programs all the way from counseling to diversion to our after-school and summer programs. And Nikki, tell us about City Sweats. This is Wellness with a Twist. Wellness with a a twist. We've been around for just over 10 years. We're POC and Women Owned as well here in Seattle. We have three locations, all natural wellness, infrared saunas. We're all about being well through and through. Well, I can already see why you guys two, why both of you guys partnered together. Nikki, I want to ask you, what do you think people get wrong about wellness? That it's hard, you know, that it requires a lot of work. It's really simple, you know, 45 minutes to yourself just to feel well and take some space and you're going to feel so much better. So how did City Sweats and Project Girl come together? I'll let you take this one. A couple of years ago, we actually were able to take a group of 25 to 30 girls to actually City Sweats and actually have the opportunity to really embody that wellness and kind of look and see what the infrared and all City Sweats is. Dee, the CEO there, allowed the space to open up for like three to five hours and the girls just got a chance to kind of sit. So you saw 13 year olds, I mean from 11 to 17 year olds just sitting in City Sweats, enjoying the sand and the wellness shots and just immersed in like what the whole atmosphere was. And after that, we just continue to partner and partner more and more. And you said some of these girls come from a difficult background. Yeah. And I would imagine there was a lot of anxiety and anxiousness in some of those homes. What did you take away from that experience? What did you observe? I took away from the fact that everyone deserves a chance to kind of pause and breathe and everyone um deserve luxury and and a spa like feeling, the one thing I love about City Sweats is that when you get in that that space you feel calmness you feel luxury you feel a chance that I can choose myself and that's exactly what we really want the mentees to kind of have that experience is like you can choose yourself and you can actually have that moment just to pause with your friends yeah Nikki how big is wellness impacting mental health can you talk about the mental health aspects yeah you know especially here in the Pacific Northwest when we deal with you know these big long big darks essentially you know we have customers come to us for all sorts of things you know depression anxiety we've done cancer treatment and really just that moment to kind of set yourself aside for 45 minutes take time our services are not only good for your body but your mind you know serotonin dopamine lowers your cortisol better sleep. What's a specific service that's sticking out to you right now? The infra saunas for sure they're so impactful especially for us here in the Pacific Northwest whether it's heat or the the benefits of it it's really gonna help you know mentally especially now. Yeah for sure okay tell us about this event and how can people get involved and go and what they're gonna experience? Yeah it's a night market 20 plus local POC and women-owned businesses are gonna be there showing off what they do best live music food drinks photo booth but But our silent auction is going to give back 100% to Project Girl. Yeah, 1,000%. And when you say the local-owned businesses, any particular ones sticking out to you that you're excited to kind of bring to the community? Spirit Candles is really great. They do really great work out of Ballard with young men who have been incarcerated in the past. Oh, wow. Everyone has a mission who's going to be there. And so it's really great to bring them to the community. And how do you feel about that, Olympia? Just being able to connect with these local businesses. Are some of the girls going to be there? Yes, we're going to have actually a mom and daughter who's going to actually speak and be there. But I think it's really great, like you said, just to kind of have the opportunity for them to see all the people in the community. I'm looking forward to seeing some of my community members who have supported me throughout the couple of years. They're going to be there as well. So I think it's going to be a very beautiful event. And what do you think the takeaway is going to be? If you could choose one word, what do you hope the takeaway is? I'll start with you, Nick. Fun, you know. You can give back and have fun. Yes, I would say community, kind of like what she said, but at the same time of knowing that there's a lot of things happening in Seattle. Seattle is a very booming area, Seattle is a very booming area, and we're supporting each other. Well, speaking of booming, there's going to be some music and some food. Hey, that's a great start. All right, ladies, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Wishing you the best of luck at your event. Yes. I think it's going to be a good one. Thank you so much. Thank you.