#IgniteMedia // Naturally Smart: One Spark 2014 Flashback

We mentioned on our Facebook that we are partnering with #IgniteMedia to double awareness for all things One Spark. #IgniteMedia is a news organization run by UNF journalism students. Their topic this year is One Spark. This piece is about Naturally Smart, who we had the privilege of interviewing last year before the 2014 One Spark. See how far these frozen desserts have traveled since then!

Benefits of One Spark More than Money

By Kendall Toothe

When Naturally Smart founder Mark Patterson brought his gluten-free frozen dessert product to One Spark last year, he expected money to be the No. 1 benefit for him, but that changed half way through the festival.

One of the biggest misconceptions of One Spark is that creators should participate just to gain funding. But many have found that, more importantly, it also is a way for creators to gain validation, feedback and awareness for their ideas.

Patterson was one of the creators last year who experienced this. Prior to One Spark, he had his first round of seed financing. One Spark did not award money to Naturally Smart, but the company’s marketing strategy gave it the publicity needed to gain attention from media. Today, Naturally Smart’s product is available in over 45 stores in Northeast Florida.

“What really helped me was working with so many people,” Patterson said. “We had over 11,000 people at our table, so we really got a good idea of who our customers were.”

One Spark’s Community and Public Relations Director Meredith O’Malley Johnson said that the No. 1 thing that creators said they got out of One Spark in the past was not financial help, but rather the feedback and validation for their idea.

“Creators get the chance to present their idea in front of tens of thousands of people and get all that feedback to either perfect their project or maybe get the validation they need to move forward if it’s already at a place where everyone’s like, ‘this is really cool,’” Johnson said.

Publicity typically comes from a great marketing plan, which Naturally Smart Foods had. At their booth, the staff handed out 10,000 free samples of their healthy dessert at One Spark last year. Naturally Smart’s idea was for people to sample their product, enjoy it and then buy it.

“99.9 percent of people were telling us how amazing our product is at One Spark,” Patterson said. “It really helped with the validation of the product and helped with our confidence. We knew we had something great going forward.”

For creators who do not have as strong of a plan, One Spark offers multiple Creator Academies during the weeks leading up to the event. The Creator Academy is a resource for One Spark creators to better identify how to leverage the festival to achieve success. It focuses on the key areas of performance and helps creators to identify the tools to have a better experience and ultimately reach their goals.

Al Emerick, director of the Creator Academy, said many creators might need to focus more of their energy on aspects other than money at One Spark.

“You might not be ready for funding at One Spark,” Emerick said. “It may be more that you are trying to figure out if your product or idea could gain traction.”

With social media being the best way to reach the millennial generation, One Spark also gives creators publicity on all social mediums.

“Giving us their all, creating buzz on social media about them, and having a good marketing plan will ultimately help creators,” Johnson said. “We definitely encourage news media to look through our creators and point out ones that they like and we contact them for interviews.”

This year, One Spark staff is talking about encouraging creators to give updates on their projects throughout the festival, and finding a way to provide that to news media immediately. This will better help creators gain instant publicity.

Publicity at One Spark doesn’t just happen for creators; it can happen for the whole team behind the creation. Nico Suave, a local Jacksonville artist, partnered with InstaRamp last year. She painted a mural next to the ramp to bring more attention to the creation.

Although Suave wasn’t technically registered as a creator at One Spark, her mural was featured in the Florida Times-Union. Being a part of the Instaramp team gave her the inspiration to officially register as a creator this year. This time around, she’s planning an even bigger project.

“This year, I’ll be set up in the same location, painting a bigger and longer wall for the entire time of One Spark, from day to night,” said Suave.

The audience at One Spark is looking for something to grab their attention; something to excite them and make them want more. Past success stories give hope for future creators to not only raise funds, but also to have a chance to catch the right people’s attention.

“Crowdfunding is a huge segment of One Spark,” Emerick said, “but it’s the connection you can make with resources and people that ultimately move your idea forward.”

Want to learn more? Find it here at http://naturally-smart.com/

#IgniteMedia // Maya Penn

Speaker Maya Penn is Multi-Talented CEO

We mentioned on our Facebook that we are partnering with #IgniteMedia to double awareness for all things One Spark. #IgniteMedia is a news organization run by UNF journalism students. Their topic this year is One Spark. We’re excited about this partnership and want you to hurry up and read this article on a 14-year-old CEO!

By Marina Lupinek

She is an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, a CEO, an artist, an eco-designer, a writer, an illustrator, an animator, and she is going to be one of the speakers at One Spark 2015.

The most impressive piece of her resume, however, is that this highly accomplished, multitalented young woman is only 14 years old. Her name is Maya Penn, and she is the founder of her own company, Maya’s Ideas.

Beginning her entrepreneurial endeavors in her hometown of Atlanta at the young age of eight Penn’s company started simply as a girl making accessories for fun. She said as people began to compliment her on her designs that she would wear, she started to think bigger.

“I started my business out of curiosity,” Penn said. “I knew that I loved designing clothes.”
Being raised in an environmentally cautious family, her concept was slightly different than most eight-year-olds might conjure up.

“I had learned about how some of the dyes in some clothing and even some of the processes of making the clothes was harmful to people in the planet, so that’s what gave me the idea of making an eco-friendly clothing line,” she said.

With her mom teaching her to sew using materials such as vintage fabrics and organic cottons, and her dad teaching her about computers and technology, Penn created and launched her online shop with her designs and eco-friendly products.

“I didn’t have any business ideas at the time, since I was just eight,” she said, “but I set up my shop online and it kind of just took off from there.”

Six years later, her company has flourished, reaching countries all around the world. She has received national attention from news outlets such as Forbes, The Huffington Post, CNN and NPR. On the philanthropic side, Penn is currently working with her nonprofit organization, Maya’s Ideas 4 the Planet, on a project that creates eco-friendly sanitary napkins for girls in third world countries.

“A lot of girls can’t go to school because they don’t have any pads to wear on their monthly cycle,” Penn said.
She is partnering her nonprofit with MedShare, a nonprofit surplus medical supply redistribution organization, that will distribute these products to those who need them.

Penn attributes her environmental savviness to her upbringing. Her mother, Deidre Penn, who has home schooled the 10th grader with her husband, John, said they raised Maya around environmental thinking.

“We always had awareness about the planet and about what people can do,” Deidre Penn said. “I think Maya saw us and kind of by experiencing and watching what we do, she absorbed some of that in that way.”

Deidre Penn said they always encouraged Maya, never limiting her, and always gave her the opportunities to learn the things she wanted to learn.

“Anything Maya was interested in, we supported it,” Deidre Penn said.

This style of nurtured learning empowered Penn to become a multifaceted girl. She does not limit herself to only Maya’s Ideas. Currently, she also is working on an animated series she has created called “The Pollinators.”

“I’ve always loved animation,” she said. “That was actually my first love.”

Penn said she learned about how animation works when she was about 3 years old on a children’s television show segment about jobs, and she wanted to be an animator ever since.

“I learned about how cartoons were made, and how these people called animators created the cartoons that I saw every day, and ever since then I’ve been interested in it,” Penn said. “When I learned about an animator, I thought,

‘That’s exactly what I want to be when I grow up!’”

So far, 11 years later, she still has not changed her mind.
While Penn may seem to be far beyond most 14-year-olds, her mom says underneath all the accomplishments, she’s just like all the other kids.

“She’s just a normal, goofy 14-year-old,” Deidre Penn said. “She’s always making us laugh.”
When she’s not working on her business, Penn says she enjoys hanging out with friends, who don’t let Penn’s entrepreneurial life affect their friendships.

“Most of my friends don’t even know that I have this company until I tell them,” she said. “And then they still treat me the same, like I’m just the same Maya that they always hang out with and goof around with. I just happen to have a company and they think it’s cool.”

She also enjoys reading, writing and playing video games, and looks forward to attending events such as Dragon Con, a multi-genre fan culture convention, for which she makes her own costumes.

Penn is always using her many plans and efforts to give back to the community. She says she takes 10-20 percent of the profits from Maya’s Ideas and donates it to local and global charities and environmental organizations. Each organization is hand-picked, Penn said, and she has a personal association with each of them.

“I usually pick out organizations that I have a deep connection with,” she said.

Penn sponsors a large variety of organizations, ranging from Southface, an eco-friendly building and construction organization, to the Captain Planet Foundation, which helps involve youth in environmental projects, both which are local to her hometown of Atlanta.

Looking forward to her speaking engagement at One Spark this year, Penn gives a sneak peek into her ideas and offers a little bit of advice to future entrepreneurs and those trying to start businesses.

“It is really important to do something that you love,” Penn said, “Because if you are doing something you love, it doesn’t make the work as hard, and you already have the commitment there to your project and to your company because it is something that you really are passionate about.”

Want to know more about Maya? Check out her website at http://mayasideas.com/

Alewife Tasting Room // 5 Points

Kelly Pickard and Jamie Burket are interested in converting as many people as possible–to enjoying beer, that is.

“I don’t like beer” is not a phrase Kelly and Jamie accept. The two women, co-founders of Alewife Craft Beer Bottle Shop & Tasting Room in 5 Points, take beer seriously. Their goal is to create a beer-loving population here in Jacksonville by figuring out our taste preferences and finding a beer we will enjoy. By educating drinkers, the women hope to create better consumers.

Somewhere in the City got a sneak peak at Jacksonville’s new craft beer establishment, and we had to share. The space, designed by Rob and Kassia Zinn, is over 2,500 square feet and has taken place of the Riverside Liquors and Village Wine Shop.

Rob and Kassia Zinn

It is a pretty incredible work of art. A few things stand out: pallet seating, unfinished picnic tables, and shipping containers. Yes, there are indeed recycled shipping containers in Alewife. The raw feel of the tasting room draws you in and makes you want to touch and smell everything. Using a giant shipping container as fridge? That’s something you’ve got to see, not to mention all the beer it holds. While they won’t be brewing their own beer, they will certainly have a lot of it. With more than 200 styles available on their shelves, and 6 taps on rotation, the beer will be all craft and all American. Overall, the atmosphere is friendly and relaxed, and customers are welcome to bring their own food.

The space is cool, but the mission is even more interesting. Both Kelly and Jamie are interested in education, and they will use half of the space for classes that will be all about beer. The classes will range from Beer 101 to Beer and Cheese Tastings. Most of the classes will be about $20 – $50, depending on the class and materials used. Kelly and Jamie are as excited about the classes as they are about beer. They can’t wait to teach us what they’ve learned.

Kelly is a Certified Cicerone Beer Server, the first step towards becoming a Certified Cicerone, which is not an easy test.  The funny thing is, Kelly didn’t always like beer. She was converted by a friend, who gave her a 6-pack of beer and told her not to be afraid. Once Kelly was hooked, her passion expanded and led her to Jamie, who is now an equal beer enthusiast. Kelly believes beer isn’t just a late evening drink, but something great enough for day drinking, which is why Alewife will be open from 11-8 Tuesday-Thursdays, 11-9 Fridays & Saturdays, and noon-5:00 on Sundays. Their early closing time is due to their desire to present Alewife as a family-friendly (and pet-friendly!) place, where parents can bring their children and have a drink without feeling that they’re bringing their kids into a bar atmosphere.

Do you consider yourself a wine person? Is beer just not your thing? If you answered yes to either of those questions, you need to get over to Alewife and learn that you’re only a wine person because you’ve never had a good beer, and beer just isn’t your thing because you’ve never learned that it could be your thing. Like Kelly’s friend once said to her, don’t be afraid. Beer is bursting with as many flavor profiles as wine; there’s bound to be one, if not many, beer that suits your fancy. The beer currently suiting Kelly’s fancy is a nice Pilsner, while Jamie prefers an Imperial.

After all that, you’re probably wondering when you can head to 5 Points to check this place out for yourself. Alewife is having a soft opening March 14 from 12-5 with just their package sales. When you stop in, make sure you tell them you heard about them from us! We’ll see you at Alewife!

Don’t forget to like them on Facebook and stay up to date with the latest beer tips!

GastroFest 2015 // Erin Thursby

At Somewhere in the City, we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t give you the low down on GastroFest 2015. The day-long food festival, happening on March 21st, celebrates local cuisine and North Florida’s culinary history. I got a chance to hang out with Erin Thursby, the Executive Director of GastroJax, at March’s Art Walk, and we discussed why GastroJax, and why now.

GastroJax Board of Directors at One Spark 2014: Jessica Fields, Nathaniel Price, Kamron Perry, Rachel Henley & Erin Thursby 

First, let’s talk the difference between GastroJax and GastroFest. GastroJax is a nonprofit organization that’s dedicated to food education. They do events and dinners throughout the year, like the Damn Good Dim Sum Dinner, while GastroFest is set to be an annual celebration of our food culture, showcasing everything from restaurants, food trucks, breweries, pop makers, and more–all in one day.

When I asked Erin why she decided to make GastroFest a reality, she said she felt Jacksonville needed a food festival dedicated to celebrating our local culinary scene. The hope is that GastroFest will show the rest of the world that Jacksonville is a culinary destination, something that Jax residents have known for a while. Like anything in Jacksonville, all it takes is one person to think, “Let’s do this” and it can become a reality. Erin is quick to say she couldn’t do it on her own, and certainly not without a lot of hard work. Erin cites help from her board members, as well as the fabulous start they received at One Spark last year, saying, “GastroFest would have been a pipe dream without the support we got from One Spark.”

The festival is split up into three parts: Taste Vendors, Marketplace Vendors and Education Vendors. It will be all day, from 11:00 am to 10:00 pm in Hemming Park. Entry to the festival is free, but you’ll need Taste Tickets or a VIP Pass to try the food. Tickets are $1.00 each and will be your currency throughout the day. It’s the perfect setup for people with dietary restrictions, that way you get to choose the samples you want to eat and purchase, or you can opt for the VIP Passes which allow you to try everything! In addition to the food, there will be plenty of free programming and movies happening at MOCA throughout the day, with mini-seminars at Down The Rabbit Hole on brewing your own beer; a workshop on making your own bread (presented by the talented ladies at Community Loaves); a Home Brew Competition; Cocktail Contest; Vegan Wine and Cheese Tasting and, oh yeah, SO MUCH FOOD. That doesn’t even begin to cover what’s happening at the Special Events Tent, the Kids Zone (they’ll have bees and chickens), and the live musicians playing throughout the day. Basically, there is something for everyone.

While she told me she wouldn’t, and couldn’t, pick a favorite event from the festival lineup, Erin did say that you must check out the “Food and Social Good Panel” happening at MOCA. In her words, “You don’t hear people talking about all the good that food can do and we want to shine a light on that. Food is a part of our daily lives; it something we have to do, and to do good in the world through making, eating, and sharing food is the best thing we can do as humans.” Don’t forget to say “Hi” when you do go, because you can bet Somewhere in the City will be there, trying everything! For details on Taste Tickets and VIP passes, event times, and the restaurants that will be set up, check out the GastroFest Facebook page or their website! We’ll see you at GastroFest!

 

One Spark // Water Me Green

Plants are growing up–literally. The reason behind this vertical shift is because agriculture emits more greenhouse gas than planes, trains, and automobiles combined.

Come again?

With manufacturing fertilizer, storing, packaging, shipping, and delivering food, the entire process of getting that food to the table involves an awful lot of greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture also consumes plenty of land; but, thanks to an innovative new technology, plants can now skip out on the farmland and move into apartments instead. The solution behind this cozy downsizing is an aeroponic tower that even Rapunzel would love.

One Spark is right around the corner, and so is Tito Sosa of Water Me Green. When Tito’s son was born, he and his wife realized that their son couldn’t grow to be all he can be while munching on potato chips and hot dogs. They knew that their son needed and deserved wholesome, nutritious food. This desire to raise a healthy kid led them to Future Growing, makers of the aeroponic tower that is energy and space efficient. Once Tito started growing his own plants and herbs, he realized how easy it was. His goal is a “Sustainable Table” project, which will bring innovative, urban farming into communities. Water Me Green wants to bring these towers to a commercial level, where restaurant cooks can walk ten feet to their towers and get fresh, local rosemary and thyme, all without using any gasoline. Local is key, since many people don’t realize that the “local” produce in their grocery stores can be as un-local as Miami. The “Sustainable Table” project will both reduce carbon emissions from travel and provide customers with food that is good ol’ fashioned local.

Blooming on the second floor of the heavenly and irresistible Sweet Pete’s will soon be non-GMO strawberries, hyssop, Christmas basil, lemon mint, and more. Each plant is snug in its own little apartment and draws water from the plumbing that fills the inside of each tower (the ones pictured are 8 feet tall). The seeds begin their initial growth spurt in natural volcanic rock that is spun into fiber. After germination and a couple weeks of solid sunlight, the plants are ready to be transported to a tower, where they will continue to grow into full, edible plants. Once the plants are in the tower, a nutrient-rich solution in the water evenly spreads over the plant roots, becoming highly oxygenated as it falls to the base of the tower. This repeated process of recycling water provides fresh oxygen and nutrients to the plant roots. This process also means the crops grow speedy fast (ready to eat in 21 days!) and must be harvested regularly. What is so great about the way the tower waters the plants is that it recycles water 100% and saves 95% more water, as well as 90% more land, than non-tower farming. Tower-grown plants are also devoid of pesticides, herbicides, or synthetic chemicals.

The towers are so incredibly efficient and easy to use that no green thumbs are required. These neat towers can grow anything except what is grown on a tree or underground. That means pumpkins are fair game! Both Rapunzel and Cinderella can enjoy these towers.

At One Spark, Water Me Green is shooting for a match with a restaurant with the hopes of developing a unique menu showcasing the exotic greens they grow in their own farm, plants no one has even heard of, despite the fact that these plants have been around for ages. For instance: did you know there are over 7,500 different varieties of tomatoes in the world? How many do you think you’ve tried? Most farms focus on produce that is easy to transport, rather than more flavorful and healthy produce. But with a tower in their backyard (or rooftop), restaurant owners won’t have to worry about food spoiling during transport. This opens up tons of possibilities to experiment with delicious fruits and veggies, all grown at your fingertips.

Tito knows that these towers aren’t going to be picked up and commercialized immediately. “It’s not going to be like Field of Dreams,” he said. People won’t magically come; they will have to learn, and Tito believes kids are the best and brightest learners. He hopes to do educational workshops that teach kids about growing good, healthy food, and with the “Sustainable Table” project, that goal will be made even easier to achieve.

You know Somewhere in the City likes asking questions, so of course we had to ask about his favorite plant. “Arugula,” he promptly answered. Can’t say we disagree with him. What is your favorite fruit or veggie?

Don’t forget to visit Tito and his family at One Spark, which starts April 7th. In the meantime, swing by Sweet Pete’s to get a sneak-peak at what Water Me Green is doing! Their Facebook and Twitter has more good information, or you can always email them to see how you can go about getting your own tower.