Bucketworks, MKE Hackerspace Pioneer, Needs Your Help TODAY 5/31

Community-operated workspaces, a sort of coop for people with various creative interests, have become popular around the county, and Milwaukee has been right there with the movement. Called hackerspaces, makerspaces (I like how this site compares them to libraries for community and checking out materials), hacklabs, or hackspaces these locations provide not only space but also equipment for a reasonable price for entrepreneurs and creatives to work on anything from computers to machining to art, even start a business. In addition to workspaces they often have meeting spaces for small meetings to large events, they may provide space for education or even spiritualual pursuits. There are many in Milwaukee, but one of the leaders in time and impact has been Bucketworks.

Bucketworks has helped the community allowing many creative and entrepreneurial people achieve their goals, I myself have experience with them helping a project, but now they need the community's help.

Being an organization that has tried to keep costs down for its members, Bucketworks like many hackerspaces has been housed in locations that were inexpensive, but with that comes some difficulties. Now on their third space, Bucketworks due to a series of events needs financial assistance, and they need it fast, like today, Friday May 31. If you choose to help, you can donate via Paypal.

As I said, I personally benefited from Bucketworks and their concept. In their first building, many years ago, they were one of two organizations (along with the Urban Ecology Center) that helped get ROMP (Residents for Off-leash Milwaukee Parks) off the ground. ROMP is a non-profit friends group for dog parks in Milwaukee, the organization that helped get 5 new dog parks in Milwaukee County in ten years with more to come. I was a founder and member for 11 years and served as president for half of those. The UEC gave us a place to hold meetings and helped us get our non-profit status, and Bucketworks gave us space for a different reason. We needed to raise some money and one way we did so was through Yappy Hours, happy hours where you could bring your dog. It is hard to find a place that allows dogs, well it was harder those years ago, but Bucketworks opened their doors to us and through a few fundraisers there helped us get the funds to incorporate and promote ROMP and the concept of dog parks.

If you like the concept of hackerspaces or makerspaces, even if you use a different one, it is important to support Bucketworks since they were one of the pioneers and the newer spaces may not exist if it wasn't for early organizations like Bucketworks. If you just want to keep Milwaukee in the lists of cool places, creative places, upcoming tech places, and so on, you should support Bucketworks TODAY.