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HELP US GROW LOWELL

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After graduating with a desire to make our mark on the Norwich creative scene that we’d seen flourishing since we arrived in the city four years prior, separately, but with similar ideas and intentions, Cat and I spent our post-graduation months making connections, fostering our creativity and developing our own endeavours. We met, became friends both personally and creatively, and shared our ideas and the concept for our dream business: a combined record and vintage clothing shop - but more importantly, a safe, inclusive community space - which, over the course of four months (September 2020 - January 2021), very quickly became a reality.

Fast forward to January 2023 and Lowell has been open for almost two years now, and the thing we are most proud of is having established a community of folks around us who are kind, creative and compassionate. Through various local music events, small brand launches and our little living room area where people from all walks of life congregate, we've been able to cultivate a space for people to make new friendships and find their own communities.

Lowell was funded completely through our personal savings; we’ve never taken loans from banks or any other third-party as it was really important to us that we were self-funded by our own hard work. Whilst Lowell’s community has grown exponentially since opening, with public spending way down due to the cost of living crisis, we’ve found it more and more difficult to continue moving forward as we’d like to with the income coming through the business in its current iteration. With the funding from this campaign, we are looking to expand the aspects of Lowell that we’ve been developing for some time.

In September 2022 we announced Lowell Records, a community-driven record label partnered with Third Man Pressing in Detroit that aims to help local working-class musicians have their music pressed on vinyl affordably and sustainably. Working purely on a pre-order basis to ensure artists don't have to pay out for upfront for vinyl production, we've so far announced two releases that are set to come out in Q2 of this year. The first, a compilation of Norwich based artists that are making huge waves on the local scene, including Other Half, Kitty Perrin and Brown Horse, has been very well received; featuring hand-drawn cover artwork designed by renowned Norwich artist Ed Le-May, it also comes with a selection of prints from our community of Norwich creatives. The second release is the debut EP from local psych band Floral Image, who approached us to help them develop their first record release and will be the first band to have their music pressed through us. We hope to work with more artists this year and help release more of their records; we believe it's a great way to encourage the growth of the local music scene, which is decidedly thriving. The funding we receive through this campaign will help us push this even further and look to help support even more local artists in 2023.

The main idea we’ve been working towards, and the one that sparked this campaign, is creating a small cafe area in the shop where folks can come and spend time together enjoying a cup of joe; we already have a community of people who spend their time at the shop, so we want to encourage them and others to feel welcome, as they would in their local coffee house. A portion of the funds we're looking to raise will go towards buying the equipment we need to make the best coffee possible (we know Norwich knows a good cup of coffee when it tastes one!) - a machine, grinder, guest coffees from all over the UK in addition to local roasts from the city, takeaway cups and the like; some more furniture to allow folks to be able to sit and relax in our little shop and some tables and chairs for our shopfront outdoor space. We’d also welcome the chance to offer up this new area as a space to rent for local clubs, societies and creative workshops; we currently host the Pretty Queer Book Club every month and have housed multiple zine launch events, but we would love to be able to provide this as a more viable permanent space.

It's really important to us that Lowell keeps growing to support the community to grow around us; this campaign is an essential step for us to make this happen. The cost of living crisis is a very prominent thing in everybody's lives and we would love to be able to provide a product that people can buy at a low cost but still helps support our little independent business. This campaign comes at a critical time for Lowell and we would not be doing it if we didn’t feel it was entirely necessary to help us survive and grow. For everyone who visits the shop and continues to support us in every way, thank you so much. We could not do this without you all. - Cat & Jack x
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Donations 

  • Ellie Coldham
    • £10
    • 2 yrs
  • Spencer King
    • £20
    • 2 yrs
  • Sam Serazin
    • £10
    • 2 yrs
  • Anonymous
    • £80
    • 2 yrs
  • Steven Hill
    • £10
    • 2 yrs
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Lowell Norwich
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