-- Huntington Beach, California's "
Surf City Nights" includes a night-time farmers market. I've suggested such for DC's Eastern Market for years. (There are plenty of such examples across the country.)
--
Local Roots Market & Cafe in Wooster, Ohio is a co-op but I think of it more as a conglomerator, selling foods produced locally, but not requiring each farmer to set up stands at a farmers market.
Although DC's Washington National Opera is doing some local programs too, such as their "in your neighborhood" program which has delivered a number of concerts and related activities in the Columbia Heights neighborhood.
--
Made by DWC (the
Downtown Women's Center) is a gift shop and cafe on Skid Row in Los Angeles (and last year they had popup shops elsewhere in the city during the holidays). It's a job training program, a revenue producer for the nonprofit, and a place where DWC clients can sell goods that they produce. (
Article from Good Magazine.)
From the Good Magazine article:
The DWC's social enterprise program was started five years ago to help the center's women develop business principles, a sense of social responsibility, and environmental awareness, says Annah Mason, social enterprise coordinator. Workshops taught by local artists and designers, like social design group Project H, help teach the women valuable skills and give them a creative outlet. In addition to creating the products, DWC women do the store's merchandising and inventory, thanks to training from Bloomingdale's Century City location. "They have work experience, they've just been disconnected," says Mason of the women at DWC. "It's amazing to see the light come back."
The store itself was designed by David Magid and takes advantage of the huge, loft-like windows and extra-high ceilings that flood the space with light. Attractively arranged among the creations by DWC's women are other items including housewares, stationary sets, craft books, and even antiques—all donations, says Mason. They're still looking for more donations, including products that will fit the boutique's DIY-market-meets-hip-thrift-store theme. In fact, she'll gladly take your grandmother's china that's gathering dust in the basement. "If you feel sentimental about something but don't need it anymore, we will turn it into something," she says.
This is the kind of shop I had in mind when I wrote about
the hullaballoo over the Calvary Woman's Services debacle in Anacostia, where people fighting the homeless program looking to locate a facility there--over two arguments, one on overconcentration, the other on a nonretail use in a commercial district desperate for more retail uses--could have at least some of their concerns assuaged, if the homeless program would build retail activities into their program, just like the DWC in Los Angeles. (Although there are other examples.)
-- Similarly, there are a bunch of good examples of craft stores selling regionally produced items--something that I suggested should be part of the retail at the building constructed on the Hine site, adjacent to DC's Eastern Market in this blog entry, "
Art & Invention Gallery as a retail prototype for a store in the Eastern Market area," including
Heartwood in Abingdon, Virginia, the
Illinois Artisans Shop, state run, in a government building in Chicago, the
Mississippi Crafts Center Gallery in Ridgeland, Mississippi, the
Art Studios at Spanish Village Art Center in San Diego, the
Center for Maine Craft Gallery in West Gardiner, Maine, and the
South Carolina Artisans Center near Charleston.
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