Canadian Olympic soccer player, Amy Vermeulen wearing a sports bag made by Common Thread (photo courtesy of Common Thread)

In Vancouver’s inner-city a unique cooperative called Common Thread weaves together opportunities for residents. Comprised of five organizations with sewing programs, this cooperative social enterprise takes sourced materials (donated or recycled) and repurposes them into tote bags, backpacks, and other products. Common Thread began in 2007 when these groups came together in order to seek higher volume contracts than any one of them could accommodate alone. It sustains each individual partner group within it by coordinating a flexible manufacturing process with a more reliable stream of work.

The cooperative was recently chosen as one of a handful of community based enterprises and charities to receive 2010 Winter Olympic Banners donated by the City.

The 800 banners, which were donated to Common Thread via its member organization The Kettle Friendship Society, will be used in an innovative collaboration with Mills Basics to produce a limited edition line of notebook covers with customized notebooks. Mills is a family owned Vancouver company that has provided office support and products such as printing, furniture and supplies to business since 1947. The company supports environmentally and socially responsible business practices and will be donating the profits from the sale of these special notebooks to H.A.V.E a culinary social enterprise in the DTES.

This isn’t the first time Common Thread have received Olympic Banners either. Building Opportunities with Business has been working with Common Thread since May 2009 to help connect the group with high volume sewing contracts like the City’s Great Beginnings Program. As part of this, Common Thread produced 1,500 children’s backpacks from the City’s pre-Olympic/Paralympic banners in a project called Sew A Legacy. The backpacks were filled with school supplies (many donated by Mills Basics) and distributed by the City to inner-city schools. Having coordinated production among more than 20 local sewers from organizations such as the Kettle Friendship Society, the Aboriginal Mother Centre, Coast Mental Health and the Afghan Women’s Sewing and Craft Co-op, Shirley Chan, CEO of BOB, attests to Common Thread’s ability to bridge organizations and bring benefits to the community. “Common Thread is an excellent example of the community capacity building power of social enterprises. Bringing together the resources, cooperation and support of government, community groups and non-profits, their work directly helps residents by creating jobs that contribute to a social and environmental purpose. BOB is pleased to support their work.”

Social enterprises are businesses that are driven by a social or environmental causes. They have become increasingly common engines of job creation and community support in urban and rural areas, and particularly in Vancouver’s inner-city. Common thread is an excellent example and one whose profile is growing. The special edition notebooks made from the Olympic/Paralympic Banners are scheduled to be ready by mid-August and can be purchased through Mills Basics.

For more information about common thread or to place an order contact Melanie Conn

Common Thread
626 Slocan St.
Vancouver, BC
V5K 3X7
Tel: 604-736-0935

Web: http://www.commonthreadcoop.ca
Email: info@commonthreadcoop.ca

Mark is Founder and Director of Take Root. Take Root is a network of companies passionate about using real estate to do good through developing urban projects, managing properties, and investing in place making ventures.

Mark began his exploration of commerce and culture as an Imagineer with Disney, developing new theme park experiences. Later, he was the Director of User Research at ECCO Design in New York leading new product development for Fortune 500 clients.

He has a BS in Engineering and an MS in Engineering Management, both from Stanford University. He was a Mayfield Entrepreneurship Fellow and has served on the Vancouver City Planning Commission. He also currently serves on the board of the Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery.

The entire team at BOB would like to extend a very warm welcome to Mark and look forward to seeing his creativity, insight  and experience at work here in the  community!

ACME appears to be enjoying a bit of a brand resurgence here in Vancouver’s inner-city! For several months now, ACME Cafe has won the hearts of locals with fantastic sandwiches, pies and refreshments and has proven a great spot for working lunches. But just down the street at 108 E. Hastings hangs another ACME sign for an altogether different enterprise.

Recently taken over by local patron of the arts, David Duprey, the front of 108 W Hastings is hard to miss as the neon sign shines with a playful mix of neon blue, red, orange and yellow in a style that combines both a 1950s and 1980s feel (in my humble opinion). Duprey had the sign idea several months before ACME Cafe opened, for a location approved for one of the City’s Great Beginnings initiative facade improvement grants . The Great Beginnings initiative (along with other initiatives relating to the Downtown Eastside Revitalization program) has helped shine up several beautiful old buildings that had fallen into disrepair and disuse. Now, as is the case with Duprey’s 108 E. Hastings location, these buildings are filling up with entrepreneurial and cultural activities. Shops, restaurants, cafes and galleries are all able to take advantage of the affordable rents, newly painted and cleaned facades and enjoy the comfortable and spacious layouts of these classic buildings thanks to the vision and sweat equity of entrepreneurs like Duprey and the support of the City. The neon signs outside many of them are the real icing on the cake, but a very important icing. They celebrate the rich history of Hastings (and much of Vancouver) when it was the neon capital of Canada, rivaled only by Las Vegas itself! A reminder of the once vibrant and important role this neighbourhood played in our city, and an inspiring statement that a brighter future lay ahead.

So what does ACME mean? Rumored to be an acronym for A Company Making Everything, ACME is remembered by most for being the favorite brand of Wile E. Cyote. Employing the use of everything from rocket powered skis, to dynamite, to giant rubber bands, ACME supplied everything Wile E. needed in his endless quest to catch the Roadrunner or Bugs Bunny. In the 1930s though,  there was in fact a surge of businesses named either Ace or Acme, believed largely due to the fact that phone books and other directories began to be organized alphabetically. AAA being another obvious choice. The word acme itself is derived from the Greek word that means zenith or peak, and in the case of Warner Bros and Looney Tunes, is quite ironic. Poor Wile E. never had a venture half as successful as David Duprey or Acme Cafe.

If you have a business idea and need an affordable space, get in touch with BOB today. See our previous post for more information.

Looking for inexpensive commercial retail space in Chinatown or along the Hastings Street Corridor? (200 block E. Hastings – 200 Block W. Hastings).

Building Opportunities with Business (“BOB”)  is working with the City of Vancouver to implement their “Vacant Storefront Facade Program“.

Simply put, the City of Vancouver will – for approved projects – pay for improvements to a building’s facade up to an amount of $50,000 per building.  We have already identified the buildings with vacant street level storefronts in them in both Chinatown and along the Hastings Street Corridor and, in many cases, have the building owner waiting for us to find them a prospective tenant!

The benefit to you, as the potential tenant, is that we would use the facade grant as leverage to negotiate longer term leases, leasehold improvements, less expensive lease rates, etc.

For more information please email Randy at bds@bobics.org.  and leave him a phone number where you can be reached during the day

BDS@bobics.org

BOB Business and Social Enterprise Developer, Brian Smith,  has been asked to participate in the City of Vancouver’s Greenest City Working Group on the Green Economy.   The Group is being convened by the Vancouver Economic Development Commission (VEDC).

At the first meeting of the group, there were six identified priority areas for which the group agreed to establish sub-committees.  Each sub-committee’s first objective was to prepare a short document on the priority area for the next meeting on July 14th. This draft document is to outline the main opportunity in the specific area, along with 3-5 actions that could lead to green job growth. The Working Group will then research these recommendations and incorporate them into a draft implementation plan for the Greenest City initiative, which will be open for further comment by the entire External Advisory Committee.

The sub-committee that Brian has proposed and is interested in helping to steer concerns Community Economic Development.  This applies directly to the inner-city and people who have barriers to employment, but has positive implications in other neighbourhoods too.

In Brian’s words:

…CED is applicable across the City and, in turn, could benefit a variety of neighbourhoods, small businesses, social enterprises, co-ops and people. Given the City’s apparent commitment to the Greenest City initiative, I feel there is a good opportunity to advance some CED in Vancouver.  BUT, I need your help! So, please reply to BOB with your respective interest and time availability in helping to shape a CED strategy that can be included in the Greenest City Implementation Plan.

Cheers,

Brian

Please read Brian’s overview of the CED Sub-committee below:

Community Economic Development (CED) for the Greenest City

CED is a holistic approach to economic development involving the mobilization of resources from various economic and non-economic sectors in the community with the intention of building local capacity and local solutions.  It is particularly relevant to the world’s greenest city as it uses local resources, which generally are lower in carbon intensity, to find local and more sustainable solutions to local problems.  Integrating CED into the green economy strategies for Vancouver’s Greenest City ambitions compliments the more traditional macro-economic development strategies by integrating localized approaches with broader global outreach strategies. The benefits of a CED approach include:  local employment, local investment, increased local capacity and commitment, local spending in the local economy, and appropriate sustainable solutions to local challenges.

Goal: Foster green business development and associated job creation for Vancouver’s marginalized inner-city residents

Action 1: Apply a CED Lens to all programs and policies of the City, where each department, program, grant, expenditure from parks and social development to legal services and planning would eventually be able to articulate the social, economic and environmental impact of their work/business/purchasing.

Action 1a: Establish a City of Vancouver funded Community Economic Development Commission that would:

• work internally applying the CED Lens and externally facilitating CED on the ground;
• develop and implement procurement policy that directly benefits co-operatives, social enterprises and small businesses that are committed to hiring people with barriers to employment; and,
• educate community (NGOs, workers, and businesses) about realistic opportunities for green job and green business development

Action 1b: Institutionalize – as part of any development permit process, require  a Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) as a necessary component of all new developments (for local jobs, procurement, and/or training).

Action 2: Establish a green zone (may need an incentive attached) in the DTES for piloting green enterprise development projects.

Action 2a: Develop employment agreements with incentives for medium to large size green businesses to hire people with barriers to employment.

Action 2b: Establish and administer a green CED fund to facilitate green employment or business development projects in the inner-city;

Action 2c: By way of an immediate pilot project, establish, through the allocation of City-owned land, an Urban Farm Network that trains and hires people with barriers to employment

Action 3: Develop and direct education and training in green collar vocations to people with barriers to employment.

Please comment below or contact Brian directly at brian.smith@bobics.org to share your thoughts and ideas.