A 13 I G IDE A \V I l' H BIG FOL LO\V l~G , ' /Ji l·.1111 l/111111111 I \\'atercolor paintings, club calligraphies, hand-made accessories and canvas artwork could all be found on the Harding Craft Fair Facebook page, but junior Michalie Brown created a new Facebook group to cater and connect to students looking to buy or sell their products on Harding's campus. "I have always been a big idea person, I just kind of run with them," Brown said. "I actually own three Facebook pages: Harding Garage Sale, Harding Dress Exchange and Harding Craft Fair." Brown aid the idea for the Harding Craft Fair stemmed from her friends and the Harding Bazaar, a temporary, open-air market on campus with student and faculty vendors. She started the page in mid-July and bad high hopes for the page, like her other two sites. At the time, the craft fair site had 324 members. Comparatively, the dress exchange site had 1,367 and the garage sale site had 2,300. Sophomore Maleah Brown, the other administrator of the craft fair site, and Micbalie' sister, said she hoped more people could get involved as the page progressed. "Michalie and I like to do [sister] stuff together, it's something cool to be a part of," Maleah said. Senior CharlesAnn Freeman, one of many students who posted on the site, focused her craft on watercolors, ink calligraphy and her Etsy shop. "I get a lot of requests from students, which is good, because I can meet with them face-to-face and figure out exactly what they want," Freeman said. "Then when I get it ready, I can text them pictures and they can come pick it up. That works out really well and it's better than selling a custom piece to a stranger." Maleah said to stay on the safe side, her and Michalie would limit the sites to the Harding community, because it was easier to transport merchandise. She planned on taking over for }vfichalie once she graduated, but mentioned all the sites ran smoothly on their own. "It always feels good to know that people are using things that you are making," Michalie said. "When I have an idea, that's what makes me the happiest, to know that my idea has grown into something and is becoming useful to people." Junior Michalie Brown is the brainpower behind the Harding Online Garage Sale, Harding Formal Dress Exchange and Harding Online Craft Fair Facebook pages. While the craft fair page was still growing, the formal dre ss exchange and on line garage sale pages each had over 3,000 members combined. I Photo by J\1acy Pate 'JL'\ IOl 6 <ii( 1'51
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc5NA==