Bridge to the Future Forge
In March 2020, the world stopped as we knew it. The Forge has gone through a lot of changes since then. But we’re still here, and we’ve still got an active, supportive community!
We realized in the spring of 2020 that this pandemic wasn’t going to be short – we questioned should we store everything wait it out, or should we find a new location where we could at least keep a physical presence?
We decided to move from our 12,000 sq ft space with poor ventilation to a tiny 3,000 sq ft space with good ventilation and a place for the minimum of Forge-like tools and supplies to keep us going. Laser cutter, 3D printers, vinyl cutter, Minecraft server, shop tools – all pretty important! We moved our our looms and our humanoid robot and several other things to storage. We shut down all programming except for some of our FIRST Robotics teams. FIRST robotics was the easiest to keep going – small groups of people working together virtually and in person. We knew this wasn’t our vision of “The Forge Initiative” so we nicknamed the new space “BFF” or Bridge to the Future Forge.
For 2 1/2 years, we adapted to what the world brought. We monitored ventilation and created as safe a space as we could. In the spring of 2022 we started having Family Open Forge on Saturdays. We tried an in-person MakerCamp in August 2022 for a small group of campers.
People began to get together again. There was more energy and interest in reconnecting. We started getting crowded. We started being limited by our space.
In November 2022, we had the opportunity to rent the space above us – expanding to a total of 6600 sq ft – but with rent higher than we were paying 2 years before in 12,000 sq ft. We brought new people to our Board of Directors. We started getting new member families who didn’t know what we were before.
This is where we are today – emerging from this strange pandemic place into the Forge’s next phase. The world has changed in weird ways – people don’t have as much energy to volunteer, and bandwidth for learning new things seems a struggle sometimes, empathy is there – but sometimes hard to come by. A belief that things will be OK – or that we can dream big as a group and make it come true seems just a bit more precarious. We used to say “WIBA” about our dreams – “wouldn’t it be amazing” – and then we’d make it happen. Doesn’t seem as sure any more.
But energy is returning and we welcome people who want to see where this can go! We still believe our larger community needs an Open Innovation Tech Space where all ages can collaborate to make unexpected things happen.
The Bridge to the Future Forge is at:
2172 N Salem St, Suite 001
Apex, NC
Come by and meet the Forge community.
* Saturdays – Family Open Forge is 1:00 to 4:00.
* Adult Midweek Making is Wednesday Nights 6:30 to 9:30 PM.
Contact us at [email protected]