There is a special retail event tomorrow at Augusta University (AU) on a campus more commonly associated with cybersecurity.
The Holiday Maker’s market is on Friday from 11 AM to 3:30 PM at the Georgia Cyber Innovation and Training Center (GCITC) on Grace Hopper Lane.
Tina Baggott, AU’s interim executive vice president for Strategic Partnerships and Economic Development, told ABD the market has two goals. First, to offer early Christmas shopping with unique items created by students and faculty.
The second purpose is to foster entrepreneurship, particularly among student vendors.
“We have 15 student entrepreneurs who are going to be featuring their handcrafted products. We’ve also invited alumni, staff, and faculty to join them as a way to help them grow and support our students,” she said. “They’ll be kind of mentoring, so students can see how our alumni and faculty employees have grown their businesses and find some opportunity to network between those groups.”
Baggott said, while AU’s primary mission is to educate students, the school also wants to give them real-world experiences to nurture their small businesses.
There is, however, a third, more subtle goal to the market. It is an opportunity to let the community know there is more happening on the campus than cybersecurity and education.
“A great example of that is our Garage Makerspace in the Shaffer MacCartney building, where we offer regular monthly workshops open to the public,” explained Baggott. “They can register online. I think the next one coming up might be rug tufting, but they’ve had classes on making your own custom bobblehead to learning CAD design. It’s tied to people who really want to learn a skill so they can build a business.”
Baggott said this inaugural market will feature 26 vendors with handcrafted, often one-of-a-kind items for sale.
“We have a handmade candle vendor, we have jewelry vendors, and we have a person that does crochet items. We have somebody who does vintage jewelry, watercolor art. We have a woodworker who does custom charcuterie boards. We also have a lot of pottery,” she said.
The Holiday Maker’s Market runs from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. In addition to the vendors, there will be four food trucks set up in the courtyard on Grace Hopper Lane between 11th and 12th Streets.
- Wetzels Pretzels truck
- Island Ice Cream truck
- Food Guys LLC
- Uprooted Vegan
More information about The Garage is at www.augusta.edu/strategic-partnerships-economic-development/garage-makerspace/
Baggott hopes the event will bring out the community to support the vendors and their small businesses, while also experiencing the welcome that GCITC extends.
“The Georgia Cyber Center is part of Augusta University, so it’s about opening up to our community. We open our arms to the community, and we want everyone to see space for themselves,” said Baggott, adding,
“We’re always looking for ways to welcome our community to campus in ways that would be engaging. So, we thought what a great way to support our students and other AU entrepreneurs, while also providing a really compelling opportunity for our community to support these small businesses.”
