WEST PULLMAN — A Far South Side marketplace providing a physical location and community for a growing number of Black vendors will continue operating through the end of the year, thanks to a new grant.
Five Black-owned small businesses have joined the Far South CDC Marketplace, 837 W. 115th St., where vendors have sold products since it opened late last year.
New to the West Pullman marketplace since July are Aries Rising, Body and Soul Experience, Belans Scrub Line Collection, Javez Java Coffee Roastery and Vessels of the Paut Neteru. They join returning vendors Chic T Boutique, Cosmic Creole, Max Candle Co. and Simply Stuff from noon-6 p.m. daily.
The Far South Community Development Corporation, the nonprofit behind the program, has extended it until Dec. 23 because of support from The Coleman Foundation, according to a press release.
The marketplace reopened with the new and returning vendors for a “soft launch” in July, Elizabeth Neukirch, a representative for the Far South CDC, said.
“We are thrilled to continue our Far South CDC Marketplace program and provide an opportunity for these incredible South Side businesses to explore the market of a physical retail space while showcasing their goods and services,” Florence Hardy, the nonprofit’s chief of development and innovation, said in a statement.
Neighbors can shop designer clothes, accessories, household goods, natural beauty and skincare products, handmade wood carvings, aromatherapy candles, roasted coffee and more.
Jennifer Givens, owner and CEO of Aries Rising, sees it as an important step in the development of her lifestyle brand.
Givens started Aries Rising in 2020 after ending a long career in corporate America, she said. Givens began exploring art as a means of healing, learning how to paint and using resin to make customized journals from YouTube tutorials, she said,
“It was like I did everything that America told me to do. I checked off all the boxes, like when you got an advanced degree and all these certifications. I worked for the biggest Fortune 500 companies in our country,” Givens said. “And here I am in 2019 or 2020, and I don’t have a job, and so that was [how] art became therapy for me.”
Givens, who is from the south suburbs and has family in West Pullman, is focusing on marketing and “bold branding” in the marketplace, she said.
“You have to be very confident about what it is you do, why you do it, how you do it, and then how you’re going to serve the people,” she said. “So even with [these journals], I think about how am I going to fill a gap for my particular customer and then by doing that, I can keep creating things that I think that they will innately or intuitively like to gravitate towards, and then want to use right and then recommend to other people.”
Givens also sees the marketplace as a place where seasoned entrepreneurs and those just starting out can work together and rely on each other, she said. People in the space with more business experience, like Rita Townes, owner of Vessels of the Paut Neteru, have “poured into her” and provided support, Givens said.
Townes, who long has been interested in African art and crafting, has sold her products at vendor events geared toward small businesses around the city for several years. Her new space selling handmade African objects, arts and crafts and Adinkra symbols is preparing Townes to have her own physical shop someday, she said.
“Opportunities like these don’t come along that easily, but this is a very unique and special opportunity, and I wish there were many more like this out there because it’s very, very needed, and it’s very important to have such opportunities for us as Black people,” Townes said.
Ameshia Odom, a Roseland native and owner of Belans Scrub Line Collection, which sells scrubs for health care and day care workers, said being at the market has given her business more structure and opportunities to network.
“You get organized, basically, and you can have interviews,” Odom said. “It’s basically actually getting your business structured the right way, versus you’re just all over the place. … Because a lot of people have a business, but we don’t know how to actually have it structured or don’t have the funds.”
Givens believes she and other vendors can be part of strengthening the Far South Side’s business community.
“I just think being in a space like this, we work together, we advertise each other’s products, I’ve taken people’s products with me to pop-ups that they can’t come, and I put their things on the table,” Givens said.
“So it’s almost like you can’t do this without a community. There is no alone in a business, whether if we’re in an incubator or our own retail space. You have to have a community, you have to have a network and you have to have those people that you can rely on and trust.”
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