Like many small business owners, Alesia Washington wears many hats.
She handcrafts therapeutic knotted balls and has penned a guided journal about self-love. She offers one-on-one coaching to help people identify what is holding them back, and attracts crowds to a knitting class called Y Knit Happens.
“(It’s) primarily a business surrounded around wellness … anything that may help you get from where you currently are to a place where you would like to be,” Washington, 62, of Hyde Park, said Saturday morning.
Washington was one of more than two dozen vendors hawking their wares at an all-day Small Business Saturday event in Bronzeville. Hoping to promote smaller shops over the big-box chains like Walmart and Best Buy that typically get the lion’s share of business on Black Friday, American Express introduced a marketing promotion called “Small Business Saturday” 15 years ago.
Some vendors were set up inside The Black Star Project, an economic and academic improvement organization housed in part of the Supreme Life Building, a historic insurance building located at the corner of East 35th Street and King Drive.
Other vendors manned tables inside Absolutely Anything Essential, a gift shop and a retail business incubator which hosted the event and is located in a three-level brownstone attached to the Supreme Life Building.
Kenya Robertson, the owner of Absolutely Anything Essential, said Saturday’s gathering, which included a breakfast and an afternoon Christmas tree lighting, was the neighborhood’s ninth annual Small Business Saturday event. Every year, more people are aware that the Saturday after Thanksgiving is a day for showing support to the small businesses in one’s neck of the woods, she added.
“We want people to know that with small businesses, it’s people that you know. You could bump into them. You could say hello to them,” said Robertson, 51, of the South Loop. “We know that you’re going to shop big box, but don’t forget about the small business owner … so they can stay in the community and really help the community thrive.”
Robertson, who obtained the seed money to open the brownstone by winning a Chicago Urban League business plan competition, said the incubator has been around for eight years.
Robertson explained that incubatees, like Washington, pay a membership fee, giving them space in the brownstone’s first-floor gift shop to sell products and host events or classes in the building. A small candle-making class, for example, may meet on the brownstone’s first floor. Robertson said larger usually meet on the building’s second and third floors, with a theater space with a stage and a large TV.
“Where else can entrepreneurs come hang and have a good time and have a platform to not only sell their items, but (also) they can make their items here and then teach others their skill as well?” Robertson said.
Lavern Green, 49, of Beverly, was another one of the vendors. She is the owner of Natural Izz Beauty, a company that sells natural facial, scalp, hair and body care products.
Green said she can work a full-time job and run the company on the side, in part, because of the help of her family, including an 18-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter. She knows her family members’ strengths and finds something for everyone to do — like labeling, measuring and setting up for events.
“It is very critical to remember that you can walk outside your door and go to a small mom-and-pop,” Green said. “You don’t have to get on a bus and go to Walmart and Target.”
The Associated Press contributed.
