Last Update: 3/30/2025
Mission Statement
The specific purpose of Makersville Services is primarily, through play and discovery, to create and share inclusive, practical skills learning experiences that develop confidence and independence (the Maker and entrepreneurial mindsets), including hands-on training, product prototyping, problem solving, inventing, activity and event management and practical entrepreneurship challenges.
History
Our history began with a social enterprise, Makersville. The goal of Makersville was to create opportunities for individuals to learn-share-teach. It is a mechanism to motivate us all to take our learning wants and personal goals into practical situations that enable us to grow as individuals and advance our goals.
Our causes are Makersville, Artists and Makers, International Friendship Ambassadors(IFA), Teen Entrepreneurship and Wellness. Each cause has a champion who, supported by other champions, supports a community that creates products, develops curriculum and produces events that aligns with their cause.
Major Events we produce and support are the Kids Korner at the Lunar New Year event of the Sister Cities for Long Beach; an annual STEAM Party, Day of Inventing and Rube Goldberg Competition, our annual Maritime Symposium and Teen Entrepreneurs meeting. We also support large events such as the LA Makerfaire and City of STEM.
Key 2024-2025 accomplishments:
We created the IFA program and a paid position for an International Project Manager who gathered support of youth artists (aged 9-18) to create and publish a book with works of art by students in Long Beach, CA and Qingdao, China. Our IFA learned important project management skills and 35 youth artists from Long Beach were celebrated alongside 37 youth artists from Qingdao. We will repeat this project in 2026 and create an additional paid role for a production editor.
We hosted the Rube Goldberg competition for the second year, with 6 teams from elementary, middle and high school participating. We prototyped our first class deliveries in Rube Goldberg Inventions with 14 weeks of content.
Strategic Priorities
All our causes receive the benefit of these strategies:
Workforce Development
Social Entrepreneurship
STEAM Education
Event Creation and Management
Product, Curriculum and Experience Development
The causes of our social entrepreneurship:
International Friendship Ambassador (International Business)
Makersville (Community of Makers)
Artists and Makers (Specific projects by our community and general support for all)
Teen Entrepreneurship
Community Wellness
Progress Towards Priorities
We are a grassroots organization and we work in a lot of different directions. Our accomplishments are made through our causes.
Workforce Development
We supported 3 interns in summer 2024, and created a paid position for an International Business Manager with our artbook project. We worked with our cause champions to develop their skills in grant writing and reporting and event management.
Social Entrepreneurship
We advanced the visions of our social entrepreneurs, each in a different way. We sought and received a donation that permits each cause champion to have and manage their own bank account. We work with cause champions to introduce grant writing to them, and provide them with the opportunity to write and manage grants for their individual causes.
STEAM Education
We worked with students in two physical locations to develop classes we call Maker Robotics, Beginning Electronics, Game Design, Rube Goldberg Contraptions. Emerging from these are a focus on the Microbit Microcontroller, and Rube Goldberg.
Event Creation and Management
Our Champions produced and supported a number of events.
- IFA program – Sister Cities of Long Beach events
- Makersville – STEAM Party, Day of Inventing and Rube Goldberg Competitions.
- Artists and Makers – Queen Mary Night Markets, Artwalk.
- Community Wellness – Maritime Symposium
- Teen Entrepreneurship – Holiday Workshop
Product
Makersville devised the Practical Microfactory to motivate small batch production. Emerging from this was the Bunny Factory and handmade bunny experience. We held classes in bunny making and made several bunnies for sale. We also created other products: postcards, books, jigsaw puzzles.
Curriculum
We wrote and published a book about the historic Pike and prototyped an activity book about Long Beach and the Pike.
Experiences
We created the the handmade carnival, where the games and prizes are handmade. This provides us with a market for our handmade goods.
Organization Impact
Makersville advanced curriculum in Rube Goldberg and experience in the Microbit Microcontroller. We hosted classes of elementary, middle and high school students. We have created a number of videos documenting class accomplishments.
Rube Goldberg – We hosted the regional Rube Goldberg competition, participated in by 6 teams in 2025. We presented to 40 teachers at a conference.
We produced and supported our first IFA role. The Artbook project, managed by her, supported 72 artists in two countries. We garnered the support of 5 teachers.
Artists and Makers supported 3 Queen Mary sales events, and a First Friday Artwalk in North Long Beach.
Community Wellness hosted its first event, with healthcare providers and Maker activities.
Teen Entrepreneurship hosted its first event with 25 participants, two high school clubs.
