Hello! 

Happy Juneteenth! Today we celebrate the day the last enslaved people in Texas learned of emancipation at the close of the Civil War. Not familiar? Learn more about this holiday here. Going forward, we will be adding Juneteenth to the national holidays that we observe by closing each year.

In addition, we are joining the Stop Hate for Profit ad boycott of Facebook and related platforms announced by the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday. As a nonprofit, we have a tiny marketing budget, and most of it has been directed to digital ads on Facebook and Instagram in the past. While our few hundred dollars a month won’t make or break these companies, it’s important to put our money where it matters. From now on, we will be limiting paid promotions of our classes and events to direct mail and local media outlets only. 

We are also excited to announce that we are finally able to reopen! Please read the following updates carefully to prepare for changes to the space and procedures.

Makers Unite Update

We are FINISHED (for now)! Check out the amazing stats above. We are so grateful to all of our volunteers, staff, and donors. In the coming weeks, we will be handing this project off to our partners at Innovation Works to take forward as a permanent social enterprise serving the Baltimore region. Still need some face shields? We still have a few boxes in stock — email Jay Nwachu at jay@iwbmore to find out more. 

Staff Changes

We are super-excited to announce some promotions amongst our long-time staff!

April Lewis has been promoted to Director of Community and Culture to recognize her role in developing not only our member community, but staff training, equity policies, and working on national anti-racist trainings for the maker community.

Laura Cohen has been promoted to Director of Education to recognize her role in overseeing adult, youth, and teen programs and curricular development.

Tiersa Sullivan has been promoted to Office Manager, and will be overseeing billing, staff scheduling, and events. She has a new office in the former small conference room, which is too small for socially-distant meetings.

Give ’em a (socially distant) high five next time you’re in for a visit!

Reopening!

We are finally ready to reopen! Mayor Young announced a move into Phase 2 at his press conference at noon today. We are going to take next week to wrap up deep cleaning, infrastructure preparations, and staff re-training.

The safety of our users and our staff is absolutely paramount. The Mayor’s order also limits capacity at facilities like ours. We have chosen to limit capacity by capping the number of people in the shops, limiting hours, and not re-starting in-person classes.

• Micro-studio walls will have an additional 16″ sneeze guard installed
• Hand sanitizer and sanitizing spray will be available in every room;
• Masks are required at all times in the building
• We are capping downstairs shops to 4 users at a time
• We are capping upstairs shops to 2 users at a time
• We are limiting hours to Tuesday-Saturday, 10 AM- 6 PM

We will reopen for resident members ONLY on Wednesday, July 1st. This will allow for a clean billing cycle and a chance for us to make sure new protocols are working smoothly before opening more widely. If you do NOT want your studio to renew on July 1st, please email april@openworksbmore.com by June 30th to cancel.

Shops will remain closed that week. We ask that micro-studio members please use the three days of that short week before the July 4th holiday to clean up, re-organize, and clear out any large items that are impeding aisles or sight lines.

We will reopen for the general public for day pass use on Tuesday, July 7th. Please stay home if you are sick, wear a mask, wash your hands frequently, and respect social-distancing protocols.

In order to keep the total number of people in the building down, we will have less staff on hand than you may be used to. However, we have detailed instruction binders available in each shop; PDF machine manuals available for download on our website; and will be creating a series of YouTube instruction videos over the next few weeks to supplement tech availability. We will also be launching a help desk function on our Slack channel so you can chat with a tech right on your phone.

In the next few weeks, we will also be launching make-at-home summer camp kits and some online education offerings for adults. These aren’t quite ready for primetime yet, but please stay tuned for some exciting announcements soon!

We know this sounds like a lot of things to remember! It’s ok — we are in this together. Our focus is on making sure that everyone can make safely. Please be patient with us in this readjustment period — it is an absolute mountain of work, and we have limited staff to do it.

We are grateful for you and your continued support of Open Works in this complex and challenging time. See you soon!!