Part Nineof a Series

This series of informational blog posts come from a document Mike,Caesandra and Kevin created to help orient new Buffalo ReUse board members to our mission,vision,values and the actual history of our organization. Earlier parts: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight

We took our first house down on Lombard Street in the early spring of 2007. At this stage in Buffalo ReUse’s creation, we had very little money. We had bills to pay. We took a deep breath and opened for business. We were first open only on Sundays from 11 to 4. On our very first day of sales, we took in something like $1,200, looked at each other and said “This just might work out!” Many of our early customers are still with us today.

We remained open on Sundays for the rest of 2007. During that time, we were building our demolition crew, demolishing houses and we found our current location at 298 Northampton Street in the Cold Spring/Masten neighborhood of Buffalo’s central city.

We moved the store and all its contents in the Fall of 2007 from downtown to Northampton Street, changed our slightly enlarged hours to Saturday and found conditions for retailing much improved. We started with the current back door as our front door, begin acquiring pallet racks and just started loading in the materials. As the months went by and we needed more space, we began renting more of the building. We finally moved into the front of the building in the early summer of 2008. We now occupy the entire building, with several entrances on Northampton Street and our yard/parking lot on the side.

In the Winter of 2007-08, we expanded hours to include weekdays, mostly because Kevin’s knees could no longer take the rigors of demolition and it was the opportune time to assign him full time to the ReSource (which was only just being named).

During 2008 we began building staff – Cheryl Mingo was already an employee, working with the Summer Youth program. Bernard Smith, a close-by neighbor on Eaton Street, began volunteering some of his time and we got to know him well. Peter Riphahn also volunteered and when we were ready for an assistant manager, he was ready for us. Ian MacDonald had been contributing up to 24 hours a week as a volunteer and helped us immeasurably with organizing our hardware area and with general merchandising and organizational challenges. The truck and field crews are well integrated into our efforts.

Northampton Street has turned out to be a great place for our store. It’s located right in the middle of the city, near the expressway, just off the Jefferson Avenue commercial strip and fairly close to Main Street. At the same time, it’s in a residential neighborhood. We’ve gotten to know many of our neighbors, who’ve become strong supporters, and we have a wonderful opportunity to make a positive impact in a struggling but still lively neighborhood. After all, this is at the heart of what Buffalo ReUse is all about, to make a difference in the lives of our fellow citizens. It’s not about houses and building materials, it’s about people.

Our efforts at the ReSource, combined with the intention and focus of our BAR Program, are bringing dramatic changes to our target neighborhood, and we’re enthusiastic about our future here in Cold Spring. The BAR Program is further described below, but briefly, our collaborations with other grassroots organizations and hordes of volunteers to improve our immediate surrounding streets have resulted in our neighbors improving their properties. Our neighborhood has already begun changing because neighbors see we’re investing in it and they’re making their own personal investments.

Vision and Mission of the ReSource:
We’re steadily making the ReSource and it’s rambling building complex into a true destination. It may sound a bit grandiose to say it’s turning into an educational and entertaining showplace of green technology, creativity and community service, but honestly that’s our vision for the place.  Imagine green roofs and green walls that demonstrate energy efficiency; on-demand hot water, demonstrations of green building, and workshops on reglazing and weather sealing your house to support homeowners in cutting their energy costs; art exhibitions and a museum of historical artifacts to lure not only the inovative, but also the curious; theatrical staircases, a community bulletin board, and a craft gallery to showcase the artists and changemakers in our neighborhood; solar panels, a fleet of vehicles powered by biodiesel, and a demonstration windmill to show the potential of alternative energy.  As Captain Kangaroo said best, “there’s so much to do, these things are just a few.”  There are numerous grant opportunities, that when combined with the energy of volunteers, can create endless opportunities for community education, art appreciation, and fun. 

What you get when you open a store like this is a gathering of people who are frugal, creative, poor (and not-so-poor), hardworking, dissatisfied with the way things are – good citzens, very engaged. You open the doors and they come in a steady stream. You get calls all day long from people with questions about recycling, building and repair, green demolition, city real estate, you name it.

We do them a major disservice if all we do is sell cheap building materials. They’re all looking for answers to the daily challenges they face. Most of them have a strong desire to be powerful in the sense of having more influence and control over their lives and their community’s health and well being. Many of them are steadily but too often ineffectively working on these challenges, without much help. Some of them are working themselves ragged to take on issues of violence, wasted lives, imprisonment, addiction, substandard housing, indifferent or abusive government, you name it.

So, the ReSource needs to step up and help out. Think of Cassie Wilson, who saw immediately that we could help in quite a number of ways in her persistent and creative efforts to give women economic power and self-sufficiency. Or Keith James, who’s already doing a number of creative things to make a difference and sees the opportunity to join up with like-minded people on bigger issues. Or our own Michele Johnson, who has a big loving vision for the people of Buffalo and needs all the help she can get.

The ReSource (and Eaton Street) is the physical place that can hold and support those types of dreams and struggles and help them take a real form in the real world.