Bio

About Jessika

I started editing Oh My! Handmade Goodness in 2010 as a place to offer resources, advocacy, and community for the global maker movement. We grew to 50+ contributors from around the world reaching millions of visitors a month and became a leader in the handmade community advocating ethics, best practices, and peer support. For over ten years I worked with makers, companies, organizations, non-profits, and communities across North America to develop collaborative, equitable economies.

Starting in 2014 with co-organizer Fatema Sidat we began pioneering new economic models and regional cooperation by hosting Etsy Made in Canada events in Halifax, piloting Etsy Maker Cities initiatives in two provinces and developing Maritime Makers as a resource for regional creative entrepreneurs and event organizers across Atlantic Canada. After the deaths of my partner Chris’s parents in June 2016 our family purchased a historic community cafe in the town of Mahone Bay and worked together at The Biscuit Eater Cafe & Books until 2022.

Why community organizing? I didn’t always have an idyllic life and was driven to solve problems that impacted me as a kid growing up with a Black Jewish single mother in one of Canada’s poorest communities. I sat on my first Board of Directors in East Vancouver by nine and had worked with over fifty inner city and rural organizations before I turned 20. Drawing on this rich, diverse history of social activism and collective action I have used my community organizing and facilitation skills to develop programs for both rural and urban communities across North America building relationships with thousands of makers, innovators, companies and communities, to create projects that lift us all up and help us make real meaningful connections on and offline.