LOCAL Houston | The City Guide October 2017 | Page 57

FOOD | ARTS | COMMUNITY | STYLE+LEISURE
Thursday, August 31, Aimee Woodall and Carla Valencia open The Giving Hub in space donated by Jonathan Granader.
CHAPTER FOUR.
HUBLIFE: TURNING COMPASSION
INTO ACTION AT THE GIVING HUB
by Aimee Woodall + Carla Valencia de Martinez | Photography by Hunter Holder
The Giving Hub started out as a Labor Day weekend endeavor whose mission was to aid in hurricane relief – immediate relief, with
the sole purpose of getting the people most in need the essentials to help them get by. It ended up lasting 20 days. And in those 20
days, our lives were touched by every person who came to donate supplies, volunteer their time and share stories of their need for
relief.
AIMEE WOODALL, owner of The Black Sheep Agency, knows how to manage giant projects and uses her creative powers for good
and CARLA VALENCIA, publisher of this very magazine, a woman with connections all over town and a strong conviction for our local
community, came together and were the Giving Hub – a local relief station that ran from September 1st to 20th from 9–6 every
damn day.
The idea started on Thursday, August 31, in a
packed Jeep full of supplies headed to people in
Baytown and Friendswood. Those long drives gave
us time to devise a more effective way to do things.
That night, we created an ad for the Giving Hub,
and built a system that would give us structure for
large-scale efficiency.
On Friday, September 1, the Giving Hub opened
its doors at 611 W. 22nd Street in the Heights,
a 4,600sf space donated by the landlord for the
Black Sheep office, JONATHAN GRANADER. In that
same building is SCOTT TYCER’S Kraftsmen Cafe,
which readily came on board as our sandwich part-
ner, providing fresh bread and sandwich supplies for
all of our orders needing sustenance.
continued
Carla Valencia and Aimee Woodall
10 . 2017 |
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