Help Kelly Malone (Founder of The Indie Mart and Workshop) Beat Cancer!!

Is that one bad-ass chick or what?

Not only is Kelly Malone a very good friend of mine and one of my favorite people in the world, she’s also an intregal part of San Francisco’s cultural fabric.  She’s given so much to this city.  Please read below and see how you can help her out.

Help us help Kelly Malone kick cancer for Good!

Kelly Malone, founder of The Indie Mart and founder of Workshop, has been a staple of the DIY scene in San Francisco for the last five years. Through her creation and devotion towards The Indie Mart, a local design street fair that she began in her back yard in the Mission and now regularly attracts an audience of three thousand, giving first time Bay Area designers an opportunity to take a part-time DIY hobby into full-fledged businesses and San Francisco consumers a chance to shop new, underground, local & handmade. She worked aggressively to grow Workshop to a schedule of over 40 DIY classes a month, from just a year ago when we had about 12 classes a month. She has worked these past two years with little to no salary from Workshop, purposefully sacrificing income to keep Workshop class prices low and guarantee access to anyone whom is interested. In the last year, she has taken Workshop to the Treasure Island Music Festival, designed several spaces/ stores in the city such as Shotwell, started writing DIY pieces for the Bold Italic, and won a top 10 spot in the ReadyMade 100. Through all of this, Kelly still found time to teach at Workshop, and ended many of her nights there making rad stuff over a cold beer (hey, after all that is what she made Workshop all about!)

This past April, Kelly was diagnosed with advanced stage cancer, which has spread from previous battles. Kelly also has been dropped by insurance and unable to get new insurance due to her cancer history. Through this all, Kelly keeps a smile on her face and continues to give back to San Francisco, often devoting much of her own income and sweat to continue businesses that enrich the city. As a successful small business owner, designer, artist, event planner, part of the Treasure Island Music Festival & Noise Pop, Kelly has been able to keep up with medical bills through the ongoing treatments, surgeries, and chemotherapy schedules. But this latest diagnosis requires a treatment path that will exceed her financial abilities, and most likely require her to take a hiatus from her businesses. So she is now asking San Francisco for a helping hand.

Over the next few months, several fundraisers and donation drives will help raise the funds to pay for surgeries, chemotherapy, hospital stays, medication and care. Though Kelly has taken on the task of superhero in past bouts with cancer, always working during her treatment schedules, this time she needs to take a few months off so that she can go heavier on her treatment and kick cancer for good. If you’ve been to an Indie Mart, if you have been to a class at Workshop, if you have been to a Kelly Malone event, or if you are simply a fan of Kelly’s mission, and willing to help out, we ask that you help out. Please pass it on, help out or repost this page and THAAANK YOU!

Here’s all the info as well as how you can donate.