Parts and Crafts is a member-supported, 501(c)(3) family makerspace and community workshop based in Somerville, MA.
In our programs we encourage kids to play, think, make, and learn through the exploration of the arts, science, computer programming, and engineering – a cluster of disciplines we refer to as “the creative application of technical skills.”
We run school-vacation camps, a full-time school-alternative program, and afterschool and weekend classes and workshops, open-shop hours and other community and family events.
What's New
Awesome Hours & Bike Repair Night May 11th
The Awesome Foundation gives out $1000 grants each month to cool projects in the Boston area. They are dropping by Parts and Crafts to give potential grantees the opportunity to talk about project ideas and learn more about the grant and drink beer. We’re also hosting the first Bike Repair Night of the season! So bring your bike and your best idea down to Parts and Crafts on Thursday May 11th from 6-9pm. This event is free and open to the public.
Social Emergency Response Center was a huge success!
Here are some pictures from the Social Emergency Response Center we hosted on March 18th. It was packed! You can learn more about #ds4si and SERC on their website.
SERC: March 18 from 10-4 pm
What’s a SERC?
In emergencies like hurricanes and tsunamis, emergency response centers exist to coordinate evacuations or provide services like temporary housing, food, and water. We want you to join us in re-imagining response centers to take on the real and pressing social emergency that we are facing today. (via DS4SI)
Social Emergency Response Centers (SERCs) will be temporary, emergent, and creative pop-up spaces co-led by activists and artists around the US. They will function as both an artistic gesture and a practical solution. As such we will need to figure out the balance, like how will we feed people–and their hunger for justice? How will we create a shelter–where it’s safe to bring your whole damn self? What will reconstruction–of civil society–look like?
DS4SI wants to host 5-15 SERCs in the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. In support of this, our (Parts & Crafts and Public Lab’s) goal is to host two events in Somerville between now and May — a trial run on Saturday March 18, at Parts and Crafts, the second in early May, location TBD, as a more evolved version. We would love you to be a part of it!
Join the planning group!
https://publiclab.org/wiki/serc
Run a workshop. Workshops are food for the brain, body, or soul, and can be on anything from screenprinting to Standing Rock, decompression strategies to anti-displacement. What do you want to learn? What do you want to share?
Build a cohort. This is an opportunity for us to strengthen our collaboration muscles and build a cohort of people — Somervillians, artists, old timers, crafty folks, educators, hipsters, and activists of all stripes — to reach across boundaries and help to lift each other up.
Intergenerational. If you’ve been around the block and have seen all this a million times — or if you’re just-recently-not-a-kid and are terrified out of your mind – we want your perspective and your voice. CITS, Full Circle cohort, youth leaders, and youth organizers: you especially are invited!
Somerville local (and Cambridge, and Medford, and Arlington, you too!) Occupation, privatization, state-sanctioned violence, displacement, and disruption of everyday life: Trump didn’t invent these things. Likewise, strategies for creative resistance, non-engagement, and grassroots solution have been happening right here at home for decades.