How it all started
In the fall of 2015, the Executive Director and graduate students from the UMass Design Center in downtown Springfield teamed up with the Transformative Development Fellow from MassDevelopment who was helping to revitalize downtown Springfield. Their goal was to create a one-month pop-up makerspace in a vacant storefront in downtown Springfield.
In that one month, volunteers hosted over 40 workshops in technology, art, engineering, bicycle repair, cooking and sewing, and more than 450 community members of all ages and backgrounds participated. With this community support, and a lot of enthusiasm, our founders stretched the initial seed funding to remain open for several more months. Soon, DevelopSpringfield, the Business Improvement District, and Silverbrick Lofts signed on to help us rent a vacant storefront at 168 Worthington Street. With all the basics in place, our doors officially opened on June 1st, 2016.
On January 1st, 2023, after years of planning and renovation, Make-It Springfield moved to it’s current location at 286 Bridge Street. Today, Make-It is a growing and thriving organization that serves the creative needs of a diverse Springfield community.
To read more about our beginnings, check out these reflections by one of our founders. We invite you to join us!
