Collaboratory is inviting the public to their summer themed Night Market from 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday, June 16 at Collaboratory’s campus at 2031 Jackson St. in downtown Fort Myers.

This Night Market will feature live music by The Line Up Band and will be included as a stop on the River District Alliance’s monthly Music Walk.

“The quarterly night market was created to bring people into our collaborative space to make connections and get to know our team, our work, and resident partners,” said Kimberly Williams, Systems, Sites and Experience Lead at Collaboratory. “Our mission is to solve all of the region’s social issues on an eighteen-year deadline, and it takes the community coming together for conversation to do just that.”

Collaboratory resident partners – Captains For Clean Water, FutureMakers Coalition and Lee County Coalition for a Drug-Free Southwest Florida – will be onsite to connect with attendees.

Food trucks and food vendors include South Pizza Co., The Brunchy Bunch, Viva La Taco, Pelican Snowballs, Dynasty Guacamole, and beer by Millennial Brewing Co.

Retailers on site will include Amorist Jewelry, Love Muffins, Wajoli African Wear, Chaotically Copeland Creations, Buddhaful Being, The Glow Soap Co., Groovy Growing, Juicelation, Willow & Hitch, The Adventuring Nerd, SummaVitaLinx, Sugar High Cotton Candy, The Fairy Hair Lady, The House of Scout, LOTUSWEI, Jayce’s Freeze Dried Candy Shack, Personalized: by Lilly, Rabbit Paws – Art and More, Wild at Heart Flower Truck, Flying Eagle Kombucha, and more.

During the event, Collaboratory will be recognizing their 2023 scholarship recipients. Each year, Collaboratory awards over $1 million in scholarships to local high school students, adult learners, undergraduate and graduate students from Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry, and Lee counties.

Anyone interested in participating as a partner vendor can email smercado@collaboratory.org.

To R.S.V.P. please visit collaboratory.org/events.

ABOUT COLLABORATORY

Collaboratory is committed to coordinating the solving of all of Southwest Florida’s social problems on an 18-year deadline including homelessness, poverty, mental illness, racism, illiteracy and more. We plan to do this with the entire community working together including people of all ages, colors, beliefs and imaginations across all five counties. We’re committed to coordinating all of this on a massive scale, in the way NASA coordinated the hundreds of thousands of businesses, universities, institutions and people to get us to the moon in nine years. We’re not oblivious to people saying this is ridiculous, insane and crazy but we’re driven by the inspiration of all those great figures in history who have come before us to achieve things no one ever thought remotely possible. Steve Jobs’ observation sums it up for us: “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” We’re building the largest, most democratized living laboratory for community problem-solving in history.

Collaboratory was founded in 1976 as the Southwest Florida Community Foundation. It has made over $100 million in grants since then and is home to more than 400 philanthropic funds. It is upon that legacy of a commitment to community we plan to fulfill on that mission at the level of its greatest expression. As Collaboratory, we will finish what we started.

To learn more and get involved, call 239-274-5900 or visit collaboratory.org.

Source: Collaboratory