Coast River Business Journal
BUSINESS NEWS
Business in Brief
Sew Simple! opens in Astoria
ASTORIA — Astoria has a new seamstress in town ready to fi x,
alter and hem customers’ clothes. Lorrie Johnson started her busi-
ness, Sew Simple!, out of Panache Hair & Nail Lounge in November.
Johnson is available to work out of the salon from 10 a.m. to
1 p.m. on Mondays or by appointment by calling her at 503-765-
2990. Customers can drop off their garments and pick them up at
the salon.
Johnson’s mom had a sewing shop and taught Johnson how to sew
when she was little. She started with embroidery and hand work and
then started making her own clothes.
“It’s a hobby that I’ve always had and I like being able to take
something that’s basically broken and fi x it for people,” Johnson said.
“I enjoy helping people and this is one skill I have where I can help
somebody else out and reap the benefi ts of my knowledge.”
The owner of Panache, Caitlin Saraniero, had a sign in the busi-
ness’s window asking for a seamstress to work out of the shop. John-
son saw it and decided to do it.
“I love having a seamstress on hand,” Saraniero said. Judy
Hollingsworth of Sewing by Judy Holly of Astoria used to work out
of the salon in the past. When Hollingsworth left, customers would
often ask Saraniero where they could fi nd a seamstress.
“It’s a useful skill to have and a lot of people have forgotten how
to do it,” Johnson said. “It’s kind of a lost art.”
Sew Simple! is a separate business from the salon so Johnson asks
customers to contact her directly instead of calling Saraniero.
Panache announces new line
ASTORIA — Panache Hair & Nail Lounge in Astoria announces
a new product line called Ouidad, meant for curly and frizzy hair.
Owner of the salon, Caitlin Saraniero, has had her shop at 261 West
Marine Drive for seven years. The location includes off-street park-
ing. For more information, contact panachehairstyles@gmail.com or
visit Panache Hair & Nail Lounge In Astoria on Facebook.
Oregon Humanities calls for applicants
Applications are open for the Fields Artist Fellowship program,
which provides $100,000 over two years to each of four Oregon art-
ists selected.
Applications will be accepted until Feb. 15 via the Oregon Human-
ities website, www.oregonhumanities.org. The selection committee
will award the fellowships by July. Eight fi nalists will each receive
a one-time award of $10,000 while four will be chosen for the fel-
lowship. The fellowship term will be Sept. 1, 2021 to Sept. 30, 2023.
Fields Artist Fellows will be expected to respond to socioeco-
nomic disparities that cause opportunity gaps in their region, meet
with other fellows and document their projects.
Artists of all disciplines are welcome to apply. To be eligible,
applicants must have at least fi ve years of professional artistic experi-
ence, at least three years of Oregon residence and evidence of artistic
practice that can engage with community groups and address the con-
cerns of their community.
Oregon Humanities is offering this program and funding is pro-
vided by the Fred W. Fields Fund of Oregon Community Founda-
tion. The fellowship began in 2019, when the artists selected were
Crystal Akins of Lincoln City, Mic Crenshaw of Portland, Ka’ila Far-
rell-Smith of Chiloquin and Joe Whittle of Enterprise.
January 2021 • 11
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Craft3 receives $10 million donation
ASTORIA – Craft3 has received a $10 million
donation from MacKenzie Scott, a philanthropist,
author and ex-wife of Amazon owner Jeff Bezos.
The regional lender was among 384 organiza-
tions Scott has donated nearly $4.2 billion to over
the past four months. Scott, ranked 18th on the
Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of
more than $60 billion, has pledged to donate the
majority of her wealth. In July, she donated nearly
$1.7 billion to 116 nonprofi ts.
“The pandemic has been a wrecking ball in the
lives of Americans already struggling,” Scott wrote
Adam Zimmerman of
on Medium about her most recent donations. “Eco-
Craft3
nomic losses and health outcomes alike have been
worse for women, for people of color and for people living in poverty. Meanwhile,
it has substantially increased the wealth of billionaires.”
Adam Zimmerman, president and CEO of Craft3, said the gift from Scott is the
largest the lender has ever received from a private donor. It brings the lender’s assets
under management to $174 million.
“We have an amazing opportunity to then think about how a bluebird gift of this
magnitude allows us to accelerate our work,” Zimmerman said.
Craft3 was founded in Ilwaco, Washington, but is now based in Portland, with
offi ces in Astoria and elsewhere in the Pacifi c Northwest. It has spent the last sev-
eral years developing a new loan program focused on marginalized groups less able
to gather the cash equity necessary for traditional fi nancing or access new markets
because of systemic racism, Zimmerman said. The gift from Scott comes just as
Craft3 is preparing to debut the new loan in the fi rst quarter of 2021.
“What we are developing is a loan product that takes those things into account,
and comes up with other ways to underwrite those businesses and approve them that
doesn’t depend on… conventional credit-worthiness measurements,” he said.
“We see regularly communities that are characterized by low-wealth entrepre-
neurs, or entrepreneurs of color, that have a really hard time getting access to credit
across the board. Banks, other lenders… they aren’t racist by intent, necessarily. But
the standards they’re using for credit-worthiness do not take into account issues of
inequity.”
Scott’s philanthropic team analyzed 6,490 groups to fi nd those with strong lead-
ership, evidence of impact on the community and a focus on communities facing
food insecurity, racial inequity, poverty and low access to philanthropic money. The
list of potential recipients was whittled to 822 for deeper research before the 384
recipients were chosen.
“Some are fi lling basic needs: food banks, emergency relief funds, and sup-
port services for those most vulnerable,” Scott wrote of the recipients. “Others
are addressing long-term systemic inequities that have been deepened by the cri-
sis: debt relief, employment training, credit and fi nancial services for under-re-
sourced communities, education for historically marginalized and under-served peo-
ple, civil rights advocacy groups, and legal defense funds that take on institutional
discrimination.”
Scott has donated to several other community development fi nancial institutions
like Craft3 that focus more on community impact and resiliency than traditional
banks. Such nonprofi t, loan-fund fi nancial institutions have roots in the civil rights
movement in the 1960s, Zimmerman said.
“It’s something that Martin Luther King (Jr.) was talking about before he was
killed, not just civil rights and injustice when it came to law, but also justice when it
came to economic opportunity,” Zimmerman said. “And our forebears, if you will, in
the work that we’re doing were organizations that were working on the south side of
Chicago with populations of primarily African Americans that were unbanked, that
didn’t have access to capital. So there’s a history there with us and other organiza-
tions like ours that is linked to issues of economic justice.”
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Monday-Friday 8 am to 5 pm
Family owned & operated since 1966
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Ph: 503-325-0511 • Fax: 503-325-9501
