Q&A: Founder of The People of Sacramento says it’s cool to be from the capital

Born and raised in Sacramento, Zayn Silmi opened a coffee shop before switching gears to run The People of Sacramento, a media organization and purveyor of “Home is Sacramento” shirts and 916 area code hats. It’s enthusiasm for his hometown that unites all of Silmi’s ventures. The Sacramento Bee sat down for a phone interview with Silmi to talk about Sacramento pride merchandise, what makes this city special and bringing residents together during the pandemic.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

Was the name and Instagram account of The People of Sacramento inspired by Humans of New York?

It was similar in the theory of how we wanted to spotlight our city and our people. Growing up here, I was inspired by what our small businesses, our entrepreneurs, our artists and musicians all have to offer. I always felt like Sacramento was the stepchild in California between L.A. and the Bay Area. I wanted to create this platform that would spotlight not just the people in Sacramento, but also the things that are going on here so others around the world and in our own city can discover really cool things.

How has The People of Sacramento grown since you started it?

It started in 2014. One day I was in Temple Coffee hanging out with some friends. Instagram was a new platform and I was like, I want to start this blog, maybe this brand, that would spotlight Sacramento. I think its major growth has come from collaboration. We did collaborations with the Sacramento Republic and the Sacramento Kings. For the first three or four years there was not a dollar made from it. [Eventually] I kind of realized how to monetize the platform while keeping the platform genuine to what Sacramento is. Our first product was the 916 hat that was launched on Sept. 16, 2016. I think we sold 1,000 hats on that first day. We’ve been blessed to grow this engaged community of people. On Instagram we have 103,000 followers and I believe our mailing list is about half a million.

What does Sacramento pride mean to you?

It means everything. It’s really what I’ve dedicated my career to. It’s what I dedicate my businesses to, when I even bring on new clients at my PR firm [The People’s Firm]. It’s all about putting Sacramento front and center and making people proud to be from here. That’s kind of where the merch actually came to life. I wanted to give people a way to voice their love for their city. Sacramento is identified by our community and by our people. I feel like you can move to LA, New York, Miami, the Bay Area, and you will not be accepted on the level you would be accepted on in Sacramento because of how unique and incredible our local community is, and how grassroots we are.

What’s your favorite place in Sacramento?

The Ice Blocks project, which is where our flagship store is, is a project that I have been part of for going on four years now. I was hired to run the social and the branding, and I’ve really seen this project go from dirt to what it is today, where we have a mixture of local brands and national names. I spend a lot of my time at the project and I also live at the project, so it’s probably my happy place in midtown and downtown Sacramento. Other than that, there’s no feeling like when there’s a Kings game or a concert going on at Golden 1 Center.

Your organization focuses on community. What do you think Sacramento can do to come together more as a community during these difficult times?

When COVID hit, we were one of the main founders of UniteSac, which brought people together in a time of need. Unfortunately we had just opened our flagship store two weeks prior. I was in shock and I was like, we have people that are losing their jobs. I put out an initial call to action post on The People of Sacramento [on Instagram] where I asked people to tag local businesses and local restaurants that we can go support. And then for a few months now, we share and post about restaurants and local businesses every day on our story.

Our goal is to make Sacramento a household name, not for the brand side, but for what we’re able to do as a community. Our main focus is our give back. Over the last six years, we’ve done a lot of food drives, sock drives, clothes drives. One thing we’re working on right now is there’s something that’s going around in major cities called the Feed Your City Challenge, and we’re trying to accept the challenge as an organization right now.

This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 4:00 AM.