Mena Lazar

Summary

I’ve spent the past two decades building communities—both online and off—that support creativity, connection, and making things by hand. In the early 2000s, I co-founded Six Apart and helped create Movable Type, one of the first blogging platforms. It was a time when the internet felt full of possibility, and I focused on building tools that made it easier for people to share their voices and ideas. After stepping back from tech to raise my family, I shifted focus to hands-on creativity. I launched The Sew Weekly, an online sewing community where people from around the world shared their weekly projects and supported each other’s creative goals. That experience deepened my belief in the value of creative spaces—especially ones that are inclusive, supportive, and welcoming to beginners. In recent years, I’ve volunteered at The Legacy, a nonprofit craft reuse store in Sebastopol. It’s where I saw firsthand how donated materials—fabric, yarn, art supplies—could be given new life and purpose in the hands of artists, teachers, and kids. That experience helped shape my current work. Today, I’m the founder of SPARE: Sustainable Provisions for Art, Reuse & Education. It’s a new nonprofit based in Marin County focused on keeping creative materials in circulation and making them more accessible. We’re especially focused on serving educators, students, artists, and anyone who makes things by hand. SPARE is about reducing waste, supporting creativity, and making sure cost isn’t a barrier to artistic expression. It’s also about creating a welcoming place for people of all ages—kids and adults alike—to reconnect with hands-on work in a world that’s moving quickly toward automation and screens.