Keep the Community Art Space Open

For more than a decade, the location at 717 Marin has been home to an iconic teahouse known as IntegriTea. In a historic location in downtown Vallejo, this eclectic setting has served as an art gallery, event space, and intimate music venue, as well as a place to sample and obtain a wide variety of herbal teas.

The space has been many things to many people: a place for painters to display and sell their work, for community action groups to hold meetings, for small classes to teach various crafts skills, diverse healing activities such as yoga and acupuncture, free writing and music workshops...it's an open-door resource for the community which has always made space for local groups, for little or no charge.

The teahouse has been a haven for the arts, but as with all good things, this part of its history is coming to a conclusion. A number of us who use and value this space have come together to assume the rent, with the intention to preserve and expand on the unique character of this community resource.

With this spirit of community in mind, we have established the 717 Project, under the fiscal sponsorship of the Solano County Arts Council.

Our goal is to maintain access for the the type of community events mentioned above, and to evolve the potential for utilizing this intimate venue.

We have an opportunity to preserve and develop a true community resource, but we can’t do it without your help. To make this work, we’ll need to raise the rent and utilities of approximately $2000 a month. Once we’ve secured the funding for this, we can become self-sufficient through grants and other means, but time is of the essence.

It is our intention to keep this community site open for integrative artistic expression with the same spirit of generosity under which it was established.

Thank you for participating.