MILWAUKEE — Entrepreneurial spirit filled Turner Hall on Small Business Saturday for the Blackity Black Holiday Market, a way to highlight local, black-owned businesses.
“We wanted to bring [the business owners] together for one beautiful day of shopping and a festive event where families can come and enjoy all the city has to offer,” said Element Everest-Blanks with HYFIN.
HYFIN is a media platform that amplifies black culture.
The market is in its third year in Milwaukee. It originally launched with 40 vendors. Now it’s doubled in size.
“We’re continuing to amplify the culture and people are paying attention and wanting to join us,” Everest-Blanks said. “Which is a beautiful thing.”
Lyric Collins proves you’re never too young to catch the business bug.
“I got started when I was 4 years old. My mom started me out with lip gloss and nail polish.”
Now at the ripe age of 11, she runs her own accessory business called Little Lady Collections.
The market makes her dream of one day moving to New York City seem more tangible.
“How big the crowd is, how many people just come to support you,” Collins noted.
Check out: Empowering local entrepreneurs at third annual Blackity Black Holiday Market
There was a little something for everyone in the makeshift marketplace, from clothing and jewelry to homemade soaps and lotions — even hot sauces and honey.
“When you shop at the big places, although you can probably find a lot of different things there, you don’t really know who you’re buying from,” explained another vendor Alegra Holt.
“You’re not buying someone who maybe put a lot of work into hand-crafting those items.”
She started her headwear business Crowns of Deity last year.
It’s her second time running a table at the market.
“This world thrives on small businesses, and small businesses can become big businesses,” Holt said. “But it all starts with you here.”
That sentiment is shared with a shopper I met at the market, Taffie Foster-Tony.
“I called up some of my family, I’m here with my family,” she told me. “We can’t forget about the small businesses, the local businesses… We have to support in order for them to maintain.”
Events like these inspired Jahphat Banda to turn his passions into a reality. His table promoted Legacy Creative Solutions offering advocative designs and digital marketing services.
“It made me want to venture into the vendor life because somebody else have the keys to changing their own life financially by doing something about it creatively,” he reflected.
He’s hoping to inspire another closeted entrepreneur to take the leap into business ownership.
“That’s what these platforms do. They help us swim beyond the reef to see that the world can become more applicable to something you’re passionate about.”
To learn more about the Blackity Black vendors, go to HYFIN.org.
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