Red, White & BOOM! attracts vendors who go beyond meals
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- From original earrings to a psychedelic mushroom church, Red, White & BOOM! vendors go far beyond food.
Snow cones, lemonades and fair food are BOOM! staples, but local artists and advocates pitch tents at BOOM! too. NBC4 spoke with vendors who've pitched tents for their local businesses along the Rich Street bridge. See previous coverage of BOOM! in the video player above.
Lisa Rose-Morales set up shop for her business, Inca Rose, which sells clothing items from Nepal and Ecuador. She said she first sold at BOOM! last year and it was great business.
“We were able to get in last year, and it was lots of fun. We had a good time, a nice crowd and then great seats for the fireworks,” Rose-Morales said.
Rose-Morales is one of many vendors offering clothing and jewelry. Sam Grant is selling hand crafted earrings with creative designs ranging from miniature Barbie dolls to tiny candies. She said this is the first year she’s brought Sam’s Whimsical Designs to BOOM!, and she is excited to be vending after growing up watching the show.
Others are interested in the exposure, hoping to raise awareness about various causes and groups. Amy Samuelson and Jeremiah Young pitched a tent to promote Psanctuary Church, a religion that worships using psilocybin, a psychedelic mushroom, as a sacrament. Psilocybin is often called “magic mushrooms” or “shrooms,” and the duo said ingesting it is often a spiritual experience.
Psilocybin is classified as a level one substance, and Samuelson said the church’s founders spent some time in jail on narcotics charges. As a registered church, they are able to embrace its spiritual uses without the same limitations, using church broadly as the group is not tied to one denomination or religion. As the Psanctuary website says, they’ve gone from “felony to fellowship.”
The duo said psilocybin is a big research topic, and studies have shown it can help with PTSD and mental health concerns, particularly in microdoses. Samuelson said after dosing, however, people are often left to process their experience alone. She said the church creates a community to help people do the internal work that makes the experience so productive. Both said they hope to inform more people about Psanctuary through BOOM!
“This being one of the largest fireworks displays in the nation, we figured it was good exposure,” Young said. “Come and celebrate our freedoms of religion, that's what this country is founded on.”
Benjamin Smith and Mandy Shunnarah are doing advocacy and selling small items for their company, Queerencia. The pair said the company is queer-owned and Black-owned, and they are out selling items so people can show their LGBTQ+ and American pride.
Queerencia has fans, flags, bandannas and more, and Smith said they hope more people partner with the company. Shunnarah said they also do events for businesses to celebrate their LGBTQ+ employees, and encouraged everyone to stop by.