FREE HART Closet & Plant Doula

Supporting Local Artists

FREE HART Closet gives away high quality, new and gently used art and craft supplies for free. Our mission is to make art more accessible to new artists and more affordable to seasoned artists by removing the cost barrier. We opened in Oct. 2022.

Selling plants and planty things

Plant doula started as an Instagram page dedicated to showing off my plant babies. It quickly transitioned into a plant advice and education service. That sucked the joy out of plants for me, so I discontinued the service.

Now, we sell plants April though August at pop-up events in New England.

100% of profits are used to buy supplies for the FREE HART Closet.

Podcasting

Dinner for One Podcast

My best friend moved to Paris for love. Then it all came crashing down. She picked up the pieces of her life by cooking dinner for herself, one meal at a time. She recorded the process in her very raw, very relatable podcast Dinner for One. In Season 4, she invited me on as a guest. In this episode we give her listeners a glimpse into our friendship, before and after she moved to Paris. She’s amazing and you should buy her book.

Basic Latina Podcast

Amneris and I met at a salary negotiation workshop. She told me she wanted to start a podcast, so I offered to help produce and edit to get her started. We worked together on Season One.

In this episode, she and I share some ways we planned to celebrate Black History Month.

Urbavore Podcast

Devin Silvernail is one of the smartest and most relatable people I met while living in Seattle. He has a podcast through which he explores the features of big cities that often go uncelebrated.

In this episode, he talks about the Olmstead park network in Seattle. I share a story about my logical (albeit disappointing) decision to avoid the road less traveled at Discovery Park.

Hartford Community Podcast Lab

Connecticut is the small state with a big heart. Futuro Media collaborated with two Hartford organizations: Free Center and Kamora’s Cultural Corner. The partnership brought together a group of Black and brown folks to tell their own stories.
 
As part of this incubator cohort, I worked with a group of talented storytellers. Together, we learned about the importance of documenting local history through podcasting.

Event Planning

iHeART Poetry Event

What happens when you put a group of art lovers in library school together? A makerspace extravaganza, of course! Organizing this event was a real passion project that came together in such a beautiful way. Grad students got to let go of their academic anxieties for long enough to listen to a poem and bang on a bongo. It was 1000% worth the effort.

Juneteenth Event

Once a year, my mom and aunt would spend hours doing their hair and makeup. I’d watched them prep for the Amistad Center’s annual Juneteenth Gala in awe. For as long as I’ve had that memory, I’ve wanted to host my own Juneteenth event to remember. In 2021, my branch hosted our first annual Juneteenth Celebration!