Sacramento artists get a big boost from site that makes it easy to buy local
By: Sarah Murphy The Sacramento Bee
When Shira Lane’s landlord encouraged her to develop a cooperative workspace with other creatives, she couldn’t have imagined what came next: a $219,000 grant from the city of Sacramento’s CARES Act and a platform to support makers and crafty business friends. Lane’s passions, creative thinking and circular economy took her to lead the Atrium Creative Innovation Center for Sustainability. In a year of quarantine, the Atrium’s Sacramento.Shop website offers a solution for both local makers and the people who want to support them.
The Atrium is a nonprofit group of creatives and entrepreneurs that focus on business projects that do more than make money. They want to foster community and equity, while also looking for creative ways to be sustainable and be good stewards of the earth’s resources. It was a natural progression for Atrium to create a website where local makers could list their goods together, with the group handling the website, customer service and shipping.