Entrepreneurs set up shop in L1

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BY TIA CAROL JONES

located at 319 E. Garfield Blvd., is a creative business accelerator program with the goal to strengthen the capacity of South side cultural and business sectors. It was launched in 2020 and is operated by Arts + Public Life. The fellowship program is in partnership with the Silver Room Foundation and the University of Chicago Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Samantha Jo, owner of Balm Yard; Jamica Harper, owner of Red Elephant Candle Company; and Kenyon Huggins, owner of Hyde & Park Co., have their products sold at L1 and are receiving advisement from Eric Williams, owner of the Silver Room. Peter Gaona, owner of ReformedSchool, was one of the inaugural fellows and will serve as a mentor.

Williams became involved with L1 before the concept started, with Arts +Public Life’s Vends + Vibes Holiday market which took place at the Green Line Performing Arts before the pandemic. With the L1 Fellowship, Williams sees an intersection of arts and business. A lot of the people who participated in Vends + Vibes had their products in Williams’ Silver Room.

Fabiola Ramirez, Arts + Public Life’s Assistant Director of Operations, said the first Fellowship Cohort began in August 2020. What was supposed to be a 10-month term ended up being 20-month term. Because of the pandemic, the fellowship had to pivot from in-person to e-commerce. The L1 retail store opened in October 2021.

At the end of 2022, Arts + Public Life had an open call for the second cohort of the fellowship. The goal was to bring forward applicants who were established and had a presence in the community. From there, Huggins, Harper and Jo were chosen. Gaona was invited back to help the new fellows go through their fellowship. Two of the entrepreneurs live in Washington

Park and two live in Hyde Park. “It shows Arts + Public Life’s investment in our neighbors,” Ramirez said.

The fellows go through one month of onboarding, 10 months of selling and one month of offboarding. Ramirez said it is a pilot program because they are still learning. The original vision was to offer creative entrepreneurs experience in running a brick-and-mortar store. Ramirez said what Arts + Public Life learned from the first cohort was that those entrepreneurs weren’t interested in a traditional brick-and-mortar retail store. They were more interested in a makers space that would enable them to fabricate their handmade products, as well as a space where they could store their goods and one where they could set their own hours.

Ramirez is planning to support each fellow to program intentionally so when they graduate they will be cultural producers. Williams has been telling the fellows things he learned along the way of having his business for more than 25 years. He also is telling them mistakes he made, with the hope that they can avoid those. He is advising them about the ecosystem of retail, how to run a retail store, managing their time and managing money. “To me, it’s more of how can I take these 25-30 years of experience and guide them in a way that I didn’t have when I first started,” he said.

For the second cohort, Williams is going to focus on the entrepreneurs’ individual needs. He wants to make himself available to them for something as simple as reaching out to him to answer questions. Ramirez said that Arts + Public Life wants to do wider outreach. It also will be moving Vends + Vibes to July to activate the new Arts Lawn and bring the vendor market outdoors.

For more information about L1, visit https://artsandpubliclife.org/l1store.