How The Craft Room Turns Creativity Into Community | Blakely O'Connor
About this episode
Carrie Rollwagen interviews Blakely O'Connor about The Craft Room and its role in fostering community through creativity.
What if the best place to make new friends turned out to be a craft table? In this episode of The Localist, Carrie Rollwagen sits down with Blakely O'Connor, founder of The Craft Room, a creative reuse store in West Homewood, Birmingham. The Craft Room collects donated arts and craft supplies from the community and resells them at affordable prices, while also serving as a drop-in maker space, workshop venue and private event destination. Blakely talks about why having your hands busy actually makes conversation easier, how she manages inventory she can never predict, why she chose to run The Craft Room as a for-profit small business instead of a nonprofit, what it was like to walk away from a Harvard PhD research career to open a secondhand craft shop, and how making things together is one of the most reliable ways to build real community. Whether you are a small business owner, a crafter or someone who has ever donated a box of forgotten supplies to Goodwill, this episode is warm, honest and full of ideas. 🎥 Watch the Full Episode on YouTube ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Mentioned in This Episode The Craft Room…
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