Recently, the Marquette campus introduced their Student-Made Marquette which is a new unique online “Etsy-like” marketplace for students and young alumni entrepreneurs to sell original products and promote their businesses.
Student-Made Marquette’s mission is to connect talented student creators and business owners with supporters within their own campus community, and grow networks across campuses.
This past week, to showcase the start of this organization, student-made Marquette put on the heART of Milwaukee show in the AMU’s Lunda room. This year’s theme was inspired by the mission statement for Midnight Run: “Service rooted in justice and love.”
Midnight Run is a movement that focuses and collaborates with individuals who experience homelessness and hunger by volunteering to serve in area meal programs, pantries and shelters. Midnight Run collaborated with student made Marquette for the heART of Milwaukee show to occur, allowing students can showcase, share and sell their art.
Stella Quinlan, a junior in the College of Communication, introduced the event to others and spoke about her perspective on the recent student-made Marquette.
“The heART of Milwaukee is to really engage student artists, and entrepreneurs and also bring in the collaborative community aspect from midnight run as they are great in providing support to our community,” Quinlin said. “Bringing that all together is a really unique experience where everyone is collectively collaborating.”
Upon walking into the Lunda room, there were booths filled with items ranging from crochet, cups, jewelry, custom jewelry and art.
Jonalie Zamora, a first-year in the College of Business Administration was a seller in the marketplace and had an arrangement of crocheting commodities from hearts, adorable little bees with a heart, flags and more.
Zemora has been creating since a young age, starting with paper airplanes but eventually moving up to more advanced crafts. As she got older, her creative curiosities developed and led her towards crochet.
“I learned it from my aunt, and I have always loved stuffed animals so much,” Zamora said. “The fact that I can make them is even crazier, and showing off my work to other people while selling it is fascinating and exciting.”
Another student entrepreneur, Sophia Sandoval, a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, showcased her business and sold custom-made cups, gift boxes, paper boutiques and graduation caps.
“My mom and my dad helped me find my inspiration. For their 25th wedding anniversary,” Sandoval said. “My mom wanted bridesmaid gift boxes which kind of perused me to purchase some things so I could start customizing things for her.”
Mira Kahate-Desouza, a first-year in the College of Engineering, had a booth filled with unique anatomical artwork on clothing, accessories and paper. She spoke about her interest in autonomy and its correlation to her business.
“Today I am selling some upcycled fashion pieces as well as some prints,” Kahate-Desouza said. “I’ve always been fascinated with anatomy and things that naturally exist in the human body can be so artistic, I think that’s really beautiful and so I decided to make art about it.”
Student-Made Marquette engages students in the spirit of entrepreneurship and gives the community of Marquette a way to support student creativity and community.
This story was written by Isabella Flores. She can be reached at [email protected].
