Do you want to learn new skills and shop for tools and supplies without feeling intimidated or condescended to? We do too! 

MakeWith a new, queer-owned hardware store and learning center dedicated to building individual skills for collective resilience in Portland, OR and beyond.

We provide a carefully curated selection of products, services and workshops focused on what we call “resilience skills” – things like being able to maintain and repair your home, prepare for and respond to emergencies, grow and preserve food, mend clothes, restore furniture, change a tire and so much more – all in a welcoming, beginner-friendly environment. 

You’re excited, right? So are we! Over the last five months, we’ve been building a foundation for this much-needed business, including securing an awesome-but-rough space in SE Portland, but we need your help to raise the barn! 

We’re turning to our community to raise $65,000 to cover our start-up expenses and begin our journey from a place of security. We don’t have personal reserves we can draw from so every dollar you can contribute helps! 

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I started MakeWith to address the barriers I saw so many people in my communities facing – barriers accessing and advancing skills that could help us feel more prepared and less anxious about an uncertain future,

In particular, we saw two key barriers that needed addressing: 

• A resilience skills gap: As climate and economic crises continue to accelerate, individuals and communities need more skills to adapt and thrive. Many people, especially in urban areas, do not possess these necessary skills.
• Lack of supportive, hands-on spaces to learn & practice: It can be difficult to learn these “resilience skills” if you didn’t learn them growing up or on the job. Women, queer/trans, BIPOC folks and many others can face even greater barriers to advancing their skills due to biased, intimidating, or outright unwelcoming education and retail spaces.

Before committing to building MakeWith, I surveyed more than 200 people, primarily women, queer and/or BIPOC folks, about their experience in hardware stores & home improvement spaces as well as their interest in learning various skills.

The results were absolutely unsurprising, Here’s just a small sample of what we heard: 

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After reading through all your stories, my next move was obvious. I set out to start MakeWith as an supportive one-stop-shop to build skills, confidence and collective resilience.

Here’s how we’ll do it: 

• Workshops: Engaging, hands-on workshops on home maintenance and repair, emergency preparedness and other resilience skills taught by diverse and approachable teaching staff make sure everyone leaves feeling empowered and supported. 
• Products: Curated selections of home improvement and emergency preparedness essentials help folks put new skills into practice immediately while seasoned pros get the rare chance to shop without having their competence questioned. 
• Services: Cutting, tool rental and other select services help folks advance their projects so they can feel the warm glow of support and accomplishment.

It’s an ambitious vision, we know! That’s why we’re taking a phased approach to bring it to life.

We are starting in an 1,100 sq ft location and will focus on workshops and limited retail for the first couple of years.  Our long term goal will be to raise an additional round of funding that allows us to expand into a full service hardware store with a wider range of services and workshops in year three or four. 

We kicked off with our first round of workshops in January. At the time we launched this campaign we’d sold 54 tickets across 10 workshops (one even sold out). We’ve brought in over $3700 in revenue, grew our instagram audience to nearly 2,000 followers, and we’re just getting started!            

We decided to start building MakeWith with a credit card, because we know that more often than not, women and other marginalized founders have to prove their concept (and capabilities) before they can secure support. We knew that if we could show the world how amazing our vision is, and how much people want it, that the financial support would follow. We did exactly that! And now we need your help. 

We’re raising $65,000 to cover our start-up and move-in expenses. Here’s the breakdown:  

   MakeWith is an entirely community-funded endeavor. We don’t have personal reserves to help us launch this business. Each and every dollar counts. Whatever need we’re not able to meet with this campaign, we will attempt to cover through direct fundraising.