We know you’ll need to burn off that Halloween candy this weekend, what better a way to do it than helping us get the new warehouse ready?!

This Saturday November 3rd at the 298 Northampton location, we’ll work on painting the walls & ceiling tiles, cleaning, setting up displays and assembling pallet racks. From 10:00am-4:00pm, please come anytime to Northampton, wear clothes and shoes you don’t mind getting dirty.

SIMULTANEOUSLY on Saturday November 3rd Kevin and Suzanne will be at the 459 Ellicott location to open the store for shoppers from 10:00-4:00pm. So, if you want to help at the old store instead–that’s groovy too. To anyone who has purchased items and they are still in the Ellicott store – now is your last chance to take them home with you! Volunteers – please come to 459 Ellicott (next to the Washington Market) anytime between 10:00am-3:00pm on Saturday.

Sunday November 4th we’ll need all manner of transport: trailers, pick-ups, chuckwagons, carts, buggies, baby strollers to haul inventory from 10:00am-4:00pm from Ellicott to Northampton. We’ll need some muscle at both ends because many items, like the radiators, are monstruous. Please meet at 459 Ellicott (next to the Washington Market) or the new 298 Northampton location at 10:00am on Sunday the 4th. We’ll be moving between locations all day.

If you have a vehicle for Sunday to help, let us know volunteer {at} buffaloreuse(.)org. Thanks!

Yesterday was Sunday, and of course the ReUse crew, board members, volunteers and employees were at the warehouse at 298 Northampton cleaning, prepping, and moving material, basically getting ready to establish it as a destination to buy salvaged materials, use community resources and have all kinds of fun on the East Side, compliments of Buffalo ReUse.

There’s a back space of the warehouse that we’re working on now (see the before picture left).  At one point it was like a middle school dance, with boys on one side of the wall unloading the trailer and girls on the other painting.  But of course, as a volunteer you can do anything you want, including playing on the rocking horse or practicing your karate moves with siding material, both of which Darren like to do.  If you want to slack off and eat (we joke with the slacker term if you’re caught walking around – beware); there are snacks each day – cider, coffee, apples, chips, muffins…mmmm.

The main mission this weekend was to paint the one side of the back space.  Yesterday we initiated five new members into the MPC (Multicolored Painting Club).  We had about 25 gallons donated and opening each can was a surprise, we didn’t know what color we’d find.  What a fun time!

So we laid down tarps, shook up the cans, turned on the radio (to block out Michael’s singing) and went for it.  We decided on vertical stripes, and although there will be pallet racks in front of the wall, painter’s tape does make a huge difference in creating straight lines   We hesitated with that one because as Theresa pointed out “You can’t ReUSE painters tape….”  But, alas, we have a really cool wall that is a bit reflective of a Ralph Lauren ad.

Sherry and Tysha are amazingly quick with painting, they finished the checkered wall in no time.  Love and Kiersten took on painting the ceiling tiles, and it makes the whole place bright and shopper friendly.  There was some salvage done that morning in the E District, so Darren and Michael worked on unloading the trailer, while Dave, our ReUse consultant who is in town, and Neil fixed the back garage doors.

What a difference one day of volunteering can make.  New walls, new doors, new materials, new friends.  Join the MPC or attend the dance this Sunday, November 4th from 10-4, please just show up, in old clothes, we look forward to seeing you and your karate moves. 

-Jessica

Although I am a huge disco fan and we are on the brink of Halloween–this is NOT an audition for a Village People’s version of YMCA. Every night before Kevin goes to sleep he dreams up a new safety practice for us to be aware of and every morning we’re on-site, we gather up in a circle to do a mantra–the safety circle mantra. We go around the circle and share a safety reminder + a stretch–NO REPEATS!


Do you want to play along? This Monday and Tues you can come out to 186 COLOMBUS AVE in SoBFLO and help us process the last of the house and materials. If you have a truck, we could use some help taxi-ing materials and furniture and windows and cabinets and stone back to the warehouse. Be sure to layer for warmth and wear some good closed shoes or boots.

We generally work from 7:30-5pm, but you do not have to stay that long. If you do come early, make sure you bring us a new STRETCH!

The picture on the left is what Wasson Street looked like in May, and on the right is what it looks like today. The green house in the middle was vacant for a year before Buffalo ReUse was given the opportunity to deconstruct their second house, and today it is a well-maintained garden and relaxation space in the Seneca-Babcock neighborhood.

This afternoon I went to visit Bob on Wasson Street, who lives in the blue house next door and now owns the lot. As I parked on the cobblestone road I saw a man pulling garbage cans down the sidewalk. Not wanting to look suspicious with my camera nor having met him before, I walked over to him as he met me on the sidewalk and told him who I was. Gladly he said I could go anywhere I wanted to take some shots of his now-beautiful garden and lot, where just months ago stood a vacant house, in need of demolition.

Bob and his neighbors are more than pleased with the condition of their street today. The former owner of the house passed away and their daughter found out about ReUse on the web. Not knowing what the fate of the property would be, since it needed a great deal of work, Bob partnered with the daughter and truly has demonstrated that he is invested in his neighborhood.

The lush green grass and stone pathways compliment the archways and swings that are set up on the property. Bob takes pride in his work, and actually helped with the deconstruction. He told me to wait while he pulled the plants out from hiding (it was windy) so I could get a good picture of his porch. He says he tells everyone about Buffalo ReUse, to local friends and those in California.

“I say, ‘Hey, look at what these people are doing in Buffalo,’” he tells me as we walk on the grass where the empty house once stood. The neighbors are all happy to see the green space and he now enjoys the occasional bar-b-q in his back yard. I filled him in on our updates: ReArt, the new warehouse, The Sundance Channel. Bob was happy to hear it all.

“Keep in touch, ” he says as I leave. “Buffalo ReUse has a bright future ahead of it.”

Thanks Bob, we couldn’t agree more . . . www.buffaloreuse.org

-Jessica

The following is a list of volunteer objectives for the coming months:

298 NORTHAMPTON STORE PREPARATION:
If you can help this Sunday, please just show up in clothes/boots ready to get dirty. We will plan out the layout of the store, PAINT, clean & “put things where they go” If we’re able to get some palette racking, we’ll be assembling those racks and loading them with lumber, toilets, and other inventory. 10am-4pm Sunday, October 28th.

WISHLIST (pre)COORDINATOR:
As many of you know, we maintain a wishlist for people seeking salvaged materials. It’s getting unruly. Ideally, the coordinator is someone who could maintain the wishlist and be a liasion for the store/Kevin/inventory and potential buyers–meaning you would have to contact wishers and let them know that material has become available. HOWEVER, right now, we just need 1-2 people to get the data under control. If you can do this and have a laptop with Excel and can meet with me (or Kevin) at the Irving office (in Allentown) next week–please email Caesandra with times you are available. I estimate this will be about 5hrs.

TEAM MEMBERS FOR CITY-WIDE H.S. MURALING PROJECT:
That’s the cumbersome working title, but it’s essentially a peace-mural board up event involving ALL the Buffalo high schools. It’s set to commence at the end of January to tie in with MLK events. Here’s the major hurdle–so far, none of us have children in high school or any involvement with the high schools–we need names and contact info of some key players–not just the Superintendent, but other people lower on the totem pole–like the Art or Social Studies teachers or PTA types.
Then, we will need people to start coordinating donations of boards, brushes, paint and publicity. Just like with ReART, we have to organize months in advance and December is too hectic with family and friends so we must start now.
If you want to be on this team or know/have specific details (a name without a telephone is more work for me), please email Caesandra directly or attend the meeting Friday Nov2 at 36 Irving 6:30pm

Thanks, hope to see-hear from you soon,
volunteer {at} buffaloreuse(.)org

I just wanted to share with you all that filming has begun on on the Sundance Channel’s feature of Buffalo ReUse disassembling our largest house to-date. Obviously we’re excited, but we can’t divulge where we are just now because it’s quite a lot to orchestrate.

This home was also surprising full of personal property–like cologne, clothing, photos, spare change, coffee mug collections, baby items and medications. It is as if the owners left last night! like an abduction!–except that vandals already accessed the home and broke most of the windows and tossed all the contents of the dressers and cabinets. We spent most of yesterday just clearing out “junk.”

The film crew wired up Michael, Kevin and David (our consultant) for sound so that viewers can hear the directions to the crew–so many things compete with their voices: the forklift, the generator, the saws all . . . Jon’s stomach grumbling. We had to do a couple things over so the cameras could catch it, but it’s sorta fun. We don’t know when it will aire, but we’ll post it when we find out. Maybe we’ll even have a screening party–does anybody have a big living room?

We’ll invite you to come out on Mon&Tues if you want to assist with the hybrid deconstruction or processing materials. Tomorrow, the filmcrew will focus on the warehouse and the life of the materials we capture. Yes, we still need extras! Just show up–see the previous post below for more details. The goal is to visually demonstrate how careful evaluation of discarded materials can be revived or transformed into something useful again–instead of being buried in our landfills.
–c

In Napolean Dynamite, the guys discuss what kinds of skills are required to impress girls–funny, they never mentioned friendship bracelets or tetherball . . . one of my favorite things about working for BUFFALO ReUSE is there is a way for everyone to contribute–even if you have no skills. For instance, we needed people to help hang the artwork for the ReART exhibition–and even though no one had any gallery internship experience,

Mike Pacifico, Sherry Burns, Love Slating, Laura Chestnut and Tamara showed up with the most important ingredient–enthusiasm! A little wine, a little mushroom pizza and handful of nails, hammers, measuring tapes, levels and we had everything else we needed. Hanging the first piece seems daunting, but you quickly get into the groove of measuring and marking where the nail holes will go.

We had some artwork show up at the last possible second and another four pieces magically appeared by the hands of a rather unsuspecting man in a red power tie–Eugene! Some locations for the work fell into place easily and others were moved back and forth from one end of the gallery to the other until it flowed well. Bruce Beyer’s Whirlygig was in every corner of the gallery before it found its rightful place.

Art can be intimidating; many people dread galleries or museums as stuffy places where they’re expected to think on a higher plane–referencing some theory or history they’ve never encountered. But there are different types of art and Buffalonians are more receptive to a broad interpretation than some places I’ve lived. The curator and gallery take on a large responsibility when they put on an exhibition–they need to take care of the artist and artwork as though a gift has been bestowed upon them and then find the best way to share that gift with a community. I think we were lucky and we were able to choose work that was accessible and fun and interesting.

I will continue to be on the lookout for artists who focus on recycling and building materials, but keep me posted if you know someone too. ReART Exhibitions have been going on in Bellingham, Washington on a larger scale and in Germany too. Art using “found objects” began decades ago, but now there is an emphasis toward recycling or commenting on consumerism.

There will be more BUFFALO ReUSE exhibitions in 2008. In January, we will initiate a city-wide PEACE MURAL event where all the high school art classes have a chance to paint murals for the boarded up houses. (pssst, start collecting paint to donate–it’s especially cheap at ESTATE SALES!) Later, in March, we’ll curate another exhibition focusing on DOORS.

We will always need more people with skills–not necessarily bowhunting skills or computer hacking skills or even a lot of sweat & muscle, but skills for RESEARCH, DESIGN, SCREENPRINTING, PHOTOGRAPHY, EDITING, DRAFTING, PLANNING and “softer” skills, like pushing a broom, hosing off a dirty sink/tub/toilet/mirror/window or helping someone measure a door for their house. Mostly, we just need people to pitch in and be willing to try something new . . . and maybe add a skill to their repetoire.

The Sundance Channel will be here next week to do some filming and we are looking for extras to be in the show.

They will be gathering footage of customers in the warehouse at 459 Ellicott on Thursday, October 25th from 11:00am – 1:00pm.

A bit from the Sundance Channel:

“We are so looking forward to coming to Buffalo to film. It is great to see the ReUse movement taking off! I wanted to send you a bit more information about our show. We are filming for the Sundance Channel series, “Big Ideas for a Small Planet”. Big Ideas is a show about innovations that look towards a better, greener, future.
http://www.sundancechannel.com/series/thegreen_bigideas”

We appreciate anytime you can give to help with the filming. Please come to the warehouse at 459 Ellicott between 11:00am-1:00pm to meet Jessica Sherry from The Sundance Channel.

Thanks for the help! www.buffaloreuse.org

Thank you to everyone who attended ReArt, our salvage material art exhibition opening and first year anniversary party last night at Gallery 141b.

Click on the pic to see some photos from the evening. More will be added soon.

The event was a great sucess, thanks to all who made it happen!

www.buffaloreuse.org

SUNDANCE CHANNEL VISITS BUFFALO REUSE…next week the Sundance Channel will be filming here in Buffalo and exploring the world of deconstruction. They will not only be filming our deconstruction process, but also following materials into new projects.

IF YOU HAVE A BUILDING PROJECT THAT IS CURRENTLY ON-GOING or IF YOU KNOW OF A PROJECT THAT COULD BE EASILY FACILITATED using items such as doors, lumber, flooring, or fixtures, give us a call ASAP 716-885-4131.

Your work would be featured on TV and serve as an example for the reuse of building materials. Please help spread the word to contractors or the do-it-yourselfers in your life.

We also have the following materials available:
A large commercial building was constructed 4 years ago…roof was installed…and never finished…it is now being demolished.

Buffalo ReUse deconstructs/disassembles buildings to salvage reusable materials…we will be deconstructing this structure the week of October 15th.

Materials are available on a first come first serve basis…preference given to buyers that can pick up from the site, but delivery is available at an additional cost.

2 X 4’s: 8 ft – $1.85 each ($.23 per lin ft)…hundreds available
2 X 6’s: 8 ft – $2.45 each ($.31 per lin ft)…hundreds available
Roof Trusses: $79 each (23’-6” span, 4/12 pitch, 10.5” overhangs)…at least 100 available
Floor Trusses: $50 each (25’ span, 18” high)…quantity TBA
Large Roof Trusses: $79 each half (2 halves per truss cover a building
about 56 ft wide, 4/12 pitch)…quantity TBA…
Call us at 716-885-4131

Info {at} buffaloreuse(.)org – thanks!