Our Place Variety craft show in downtown Victoria features trinkets, craft necklaces and bracelets, decorative boxes, and wreaths — made and repaired — and items provided by a relative in Hawaii, including calendars.

Ginny Kay Akau, whose family owns the building, is one of the contributors to the operation. She and friends Peggy Townsend and Delois Hite are undertaking the project together.

“We’re all family here,” Akau said.

The ribbon cutting for the store was held Saturday, Jan. 9.

Akau and Townsend have been friends for around 30 years; Hite and Townsend have been friends a couple of years. Townsend and Hite have known each other about the same time, but have become fast friends.

“I can be thinking something and say it to (Hite) and she’ll say, ‘Peggy, I was thinking the same thing,” Townsend said.

For $25 a month, other artists can sell their wares in the shop, and keep their profit.

“We’ll put their merchandise in here, let them come and put it where they want it to be,” Akau said.

Having lost a child years ago and later her husband and now beset with health problems, Townsend finds an outlet working with wreaths.

“Wreaths can at least give me something to do. It’s kind of therapy,” she said. “If I didn’t do that, I don’t know where I’d be. It was God given. It was a salvation.”

Hite’s efforts include baskets and gift bags.

“It’s something to get me out of the house during the day, and I enjoy working with people,” she said.

Sooner than later, Akau said, they hope to offer meals with outdoor seating. But first, they will start with breakfast.

“Soon as I can get the kitchen up to code and ready to go,” said Michael Akau, Ginny’s son. “I hope in the next couple of months.”