OUR VALUES At San Diego Craft Collective: We serve all ages, backgrounds & interests; We offer an inclusive, family-friendly, eco-conscious environment; We create a safe, educational, inspiring learning space for all ages; We are an active resource for the community, advocating and sharing craft through a wide variety of craft modalities; We build confidence through craft & creativity by offering an ever-expanding array of workshops, activities & camps; We empower women, non-binary persons, underserved communities and under-resourced children; We improve lives through the transformative nature of craft; We provide scholarships and fellowship opportunities to the community; We give back to the community through craft activities, as well as with discounts to families with more than one child, military families, veterans, and first responders; We incorporate STEAM, Integrated Curriculum and Social Emotional Learning; We support artists, craftspeople and educators to learn, share & create work of their own as they grow their practices. COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY In today’s world, San Diego Craft Collective has big dreams about teaching skills that lead to hands that create change and new possibilities. With this goal, we select primarily natural &/or recycled/upcycled materials to work with. And, we aim to be a catalyst for a new movement that re-connects the disconnect. We’re committed to creating a safe, inclusive, educational & inspiring learning space for all ages using safe materials and practices. A few of the ways the Craft Collective is working to support an eco-conscious stewardship: We planted an organic edible & pollinator garden in an under-utilized plot of land outside our studio and offer Organic Gardening Classes for both Family & Adults and Kids Ages 6+ years to encourage healthy living practices and combat food insecurity for all ages. Check out this resource on why gardens are such interdisciplinary fun for people of all ages. We use clean sawdust from our woodshop as mulch in our Organic Garden, saving it from filling the landfill as waste and benefiting our garden–keeping it local. We upcycle & recycle in our studio and the community! Find out more about our local impact with recent Community Give-Back Projects below. We teach how to craft quality projects that are thoughtful, intentional and last for years to come &/or can be easily recycled. We teach children to recycle and reuse in our camps and workshops — leading by example. We upcycle donated old furniture for many projects, such as disassembling, cutting and giving new life to sheet goods (plywood, particle board & MDF) and solid lumber. We take many donations that otherwise find their way to landfills. We work to find homes for donations we don’t have a need for. We share with and look to alternative sources in the community, such as the BuyNothing Project, local schools, and other resources for upcycling and recycling. We say no to plastic glitter. Don’t worry, there are great alternatives. To find out why glitter isn’t our favorite craft supply, check out these articles —Newsweek, and The Guardian. And we’re adding more ways we can work to improve this planet every month! Community Give-Back Projects! We often receive donations of displays and single-use items from corporations. In 2022, we upcycled a living plant wall that had been used as décor for an event at the San Diego Convention Center. We saved the living plants from the landfill and spread the plant-love by donating the hundreds of young house plants to community members from all over San Diego county. Now we’re re-planting the wall with donated drought-tolerant succulents for a better, longer lasting, eco-friendly improvement to our space. Why opt for succulents? Read these for more info – Gardening with Native Succulents (The Nat) & Succulents Dominate DIY Drought-tolerant Relandscape (SD Union Tribune). Did you know that house plants create cleaner air in homes? Read about the nasa study on it. In 2023, a San Diego-based company, Tipsy Elves, celebrated 10 years of ugly sweater-making and donated their “World’s Largest Ugly Christmas Sweater!” for us to creatively upcycle! Here at the Craft Collective we’re transforming this huuuuuge green sweater into pet blankets for local animal shelters and rescue orgs. Some of our sewing students made people-sized cardigans out of the sweater material. And we’ve got more ideas coming! Stay tuned on social media (Facebook, Instagram) to see what we make! In 2024, Craft Collective hosted its first-ever Fiber Fest, a free educational event focusing on wool as a sustainable material through building community within the Southern California Fibershed, while teaching the necessary skills to build and sustain a thriving natural textile eco-system. We did this in partnership with local economies and regional organic agriculture. This event brought nearly 500 people that day to join us in building awareness of what goes into natural textile production, showcasing a live sheep-shearing, alpaca petting experience, talks from local organizations, live artist demonstrations, lots of free craft opportunities and more. Fiber Fest continued in 2025, and we’re committed to making it an annual event! In 2025, we hosted our first-ever Craft Supply Surplus Sale, as we’re committed to re-directing supplies from the landfill, lowering everyone’s carbon footprints by helping crafters buy second-hand, and sharing craft with our community! We’re also excited to host our first Mega Swap event in collaboration with San Diego Seed Swap and Commonplace San Diego!