All for All Immigrant & Refugee Artisan Booth

The All for All Immigrant and Refugee Artisans Booth helps connect artisans in the Pittsburgh Area with opportunities to display and sell their work at a variety of local events. All for All works with the artists to develop their craft business and provides them with the tools to better market and advertise their products, including their social media/online skills.

The money raised will give All for All the ability to support more local artists and connect more immigrants to entrepreneurship opportunities. This funding will go towards direct programming costs such as supplies, insurance, and vendor fees needed to continue the Artisans Booth at craft markets this summer. It will also cover costs for marketing assistance such as designing and printing business cards and signs for the artisans.

With money raised from an ioby campaign, this program can make a significant economic impact in the immigrant artisan community and promotes immigrant inclusion in the arts in our Pittsburgh region. Thank you for considering our campaign!

May 2019 (ongoing)

• Continue to do outreach to immigrant artisans who may want to participate

• Determine the artisans’ availability for upcoming market events in November and in the months to follow

• Apply for market events and pay vendor fees upon acceptance

May 2019 (ongoing)

• Give marketing assistance to artisans who are new to the group (designing and printing business cards, printing signs, etc.)

• Purchase supplies for market events

May 2019 - October 2019

• Participate in  market events

• Provide ongoing assistance to artisans

All for All has been working with several immigrant and refugee artisans who, when we met them, had handmade products they wanted to sell but didn’t know how to navigate local market opportunities. In order to to get these talented artists up to speed and introduce them to local markets, we have been hosting booths at local craft markets and inviting the artists to sell their crafts at our booth. Doing this not only gives them the space to sell their goods at no cost to them, but also increases understanding of how to participate in markets on their own in the future. Often, English is a barrier in finding and applying for vending opportunities. Even when language is not a barrier, it can be difficult figuring out how to open an online shop and learn how to best market a businesses. Over this summer, we’ve worked with a core group of about ten artisans, and hope for that number to grow in the coming year!

Testimonials:

Ricardo Solis, a Costa Rican artist who makes art out of reclaimed materials, says, "Thanks to All for All, I've not only been able to show my products to a bigger audience, but I've also been able to meet all these other talented artists from around the world."

Kardelens Fiber Arts is led by Serap Uzunoglu and her friends from the Turkish community. Serap talks about how learning fiber arts and learning how to sell it locally has helped her. She says, “We became aware that we can have a place in the community and we gained our self-confidence again, like we had in our country. We hope to support other newcomers as All for All and the Fiber Arts Guild did for us.”