In the wake of reports that the Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade, writer and producer Gloria Calderón Kellett is getting to work.
While she said she is unable to incorporate women’s reproductive rights issues into storylines for Season 2 of her Amazon anthology series “With Love” because the scripts are locked, she says, “In my other stuff, will it be in there? Yeah! Especially women of color, especially poor women. Rich women will be able to get abortions but we need to look at women of color and other communities.”
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Sarah Michelle Gellar adds, “All they are doing is banning safe abortions.”
I spoke to Kellett and Gellar at a pre-Mother’s Day luncheon on Friday hosted by fair trade retailer The Little Market at Issima at the La Peer Hotel in West Hollywood.
Kellett said she was in Washington, D.C. last week lobbying for the National Endowment for the Arts. “We as storytellers are people that are visible. We can go and effect policy and change,” she said. “We are actors, writers and directors, but we are also citizens of this country that can be a platform for many people. That can be very powerful.”
Kellett added, “ I think about the future of my kids and I want to leave it a more positive world.”
Gellar cracked, “You’re leaving? I told my kids I’m going to haunt them forever.”
The Little Market, founded in 2013 by Lauren Conrad and Hannah Skvarla, is a non-profit fair trade shop that supports economic self-sufficiency of women and other underserved communities.
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“Today, we’re celebrating all of the resilient mothers that we work with at Little Market,” Skvarla said. “When Lauren and I started Little Market almost 10 years ago it was before either of us were moms, but we learned that when mothers are empowered that the ripple effect is incredible. Preventable diseases decrease and children go to school, daughters get educated and mothers get more rights and women get more rights. We were so inspired by that and that is why we created The Little Market.”
COVID presented logistical challenges for The Little Market. For example, the company’s sugar scrub product used to be made in Chicago but “the artisans who made it could no longer do it there because of COVID and capacity issues so we actually identified this group of women in L.A. who had been trafficked and moved the work over to them,” Skvarla explained. “We try to be as creative as possible and support artisans however possible.”
Conrad added, “A lot of the groups we work with live in areas that were really affected by COVID disproportionally, so the work became that much more important. We have an amazing community built around Little Market and everyone has been so amazing about supporting us in lots of different ways and spreading the message and telling the stories of the artisans.”
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Jenna Ushkowitz, who is pregnant with her first child, said she has been shopping The Little Market for about a year. “As a soon-to-be mother, supporting women and mothers, it’s been really eye-opening and incredible to see what Little Market does and what Lauren and Hannah do,” the former “Glee” star said.
The luncheon’s guest list also included Stephanie Beatriz, Jordana Brewster, Lauren Sánchez, Angelique Cabral, Ayda Field Williams, Tia Mowry, Phoebe Gates and Elsa Collins.
In honor of Mother’s Day, Sánchez, an Emmy-Award winning journalist and philanthropist, has also been matching all donations to Little Market this past week and through tomorrow.
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