Setting the Record Straight

I’m Setting the Record Straight!

Taking on the role of manager at the WCSS Re-Use-It Centre has been quite an adventure.  The month of May – my first month – was epic to say the least.  I entered the store at the busiest time of the year.  Spring cleaning and the 1000’s of seasonal workers leaving town made for some mind blowing donations.  At times I wondered if we could be buried alive!  And although the donations continue to pour in in record numbers (thank you Whistler!) I finally have my footing and am getting down to the business of running this important place. 

We have two important roles; to support those in need by raising funds for Whistler Community Services Society (WCSS) programs/services and to promote sustainability.  At the Chamber of Commerce Business Awards night a couple weeks back WCSS won the Sustainability award.  It was very cool, because it was the first big high five for the sustainability side of what we do.  Before managing this store I was not a regular to thrift shops but I decided to fully embrace the spirit of the award and go as the Re-Use-It girl!  I shopped off the rack at the store for my outfit (photo above).  Dress - $15, earrings - $4, necklace - $3, handbag - $3, wrap - $5.  I did the same for the Oysterfest at the Bearfoot Bistro. Pants - $6, top - $3.75, ring - $2, bra - $3.50.   I loved my outfits!

I am a true Re-Use-It Centre advocate now! This place rocks!  And it is amazing how many rumours are circulating out there that aren’t just true.  So as the new manager, I need to set the record straight on a few of those Re-Use-It myths. 

1.       The Employees get all the good stuff.  Nope!  Not even close to being true.  In the month of May we processed 2219 garbage bag equivalents of donations.  In June it was 2443 bags.  That is a lot of stuff!  And consequently a lot of great stuff!  If the employees did in fact get all the good stuff, they would essentially have moved the Re-Use-It Centre to their homes.  Not something any of us want.  Sure there are perks to this back breaking work, in that we get to see everything before it goes on the floor, but we all exercise a great deal of restraint when deciding what we purchase to take home.  We gotta love it!

2.       We’re Expensive.  Sure our primary role is to fund the many important social programs in Whistler, but we are still a business.  And it would be just plain silly of us not to do our best to remain competitive in the discounted retail environment.  So we price check our competition regularly.  This includes Consignment and Thrift shops in Squamish and Vancouver as well as Walmart and the dollar stores.  Ask us about it next time you are in the store. 

3.       What about all those TV’s?  Here is the myth busted about all those TV’s wrapped up outside.  We’re not taking them home!  They’re broken!  We have a very success recycle program whose proceeds are becoming important contributors to all those programs we support.  Actually you can bring down pretty much any electronic thing with a cord and we can put it into its proper recycling spot.  That goes for your lights, bulbs & drinking bottles too.  When you recycle with us you support your community. 

4.       We throw things away.  Ok we do!  Not a lot, but we do.  Of the 2219 bags of donations we got in May, 235 of those went into the land fill.  Along with all the great things that come in, we do get garbage – broken things, ripped, torn or unusable items that just don’t qualify for our store or our charitable partners.  We even get people’s garbage (we hope by accident) every once in a while.  But don’t you think it’s pretty amazing that of the 2219 bags of donations only 235 went into the land fill?

The health of our community depends on the success of the Re-Use-It Centre.  Thank you for your support Whistler – be it as a donor or a shopper.  We love seeing the smile on your face when you offer your spring cleaning donations to our receivers or when you find that perfect ‘treasure’ for a fraction of its real cost!   

Cheryl Skribe – Manager, Re-Use-It Centre,Whistler

Old News with guest blogger Vicki Crompton

So, Baby Boomers, here we are –on the brink of official old-agedom.  I consider myself slightly behind the leading edge – born in 1947 when peace was new, optimism ran high, and young men and women were breeding apace.  We are the product -the embodiment of their optimism, lobbed confidently into a future built on foundations of peace, antibiotics, plastics, refrigerators, two car garages, and cheap mortgages. 

Fast-forward a lifetime.  We have been a force to be reckoned with. We have  worked for gender, sexual and ethnic equality, fueled the exploding world of communication technology and made a religion of recycling .  On the other hand, we have unraveled the peace, amassed monster debt, and compromised our environment.  As it turns out, we aren’t any better than anybody else. There are just more of us. Innovation has occurred in response to our numbers. Think of kindergarten, racquetball, and marketing strategies directed to our considerable buying power. 

So now we are peering around the corner, wondering how the world will respond to this next stage. We aren’t shiny and new any more. We’re losing hair and gaining weight. But we are entering an exciting stage of our lives – the perfect storm – when money, time, and health converge. I know we aren’t all rich, fit, layabouts, but if we’ve played our cards right, many will have some happy, productive years ahead. And those of us who live in Whistler have jumped the gun – we are in paradise already.

As we have always had an impact in the past, we now look to the future and hope our community will be able to respond to our needs.  As we have grown and evolved, so has Whistler. When it was young and raunchy – so were we.  Early on, old people left the community – it simply wasn’t practical to stay.  But now, many who have lived and worked here forever – who have brought up their families here - want to stay; to ‘age in place’.  Many who have had vacation homes in Whistler want to retire here. The good news is that changes to make Whistler a senior friendly community are already happening. The Mature Action Committee (MAC) has worked hard to establish cost controlled seniors housing.  A Seniors Needs Action Planner has been hired by Whistler Community Services to assess the needs of local seniors and respond to them.  We are on the cusp of change. Whistler seniors have a great opportunity to be part of creating a dynamic vision for our community.  The future looks bright – put on your shades!

The Story of (Whistler's) Stuff

I just watched an amazing short on “stuff”. Things you buy to wear or use in your house. On the website storyofstuff.org, a cute animated picture educates you on some pretty scary statistics. The short looks at the story of stuff, from extraction of raw materials from the earth to the end disposal of these materials, and looks at a system in crisis. For example, in the US, after 6 months only 1% of the good purchased in that time are still in use. This means that 99% of purchased goods make their way to the landfill every 6 months. This got me thinking about the story of “Whistler’s stuff”, and where it ends up!

Whistler is perceived as a place with wealth. The outside world thinks of Whistler as a playground for the rich, a ski resort with big fancy houses and lots of material goods. The big question facing Whistler is what to do with things when they are no longer desired by the owner? The other side of the coin is most of us that live and work here don't have a lot of wealth, but we also need and have stuff.

Up until about 15 years ago, everything went to the landfill. It was located then where the town centre now exists. Locals who lived here tell me the dump was the best picking in town, as EVERYTHING went into it. Then about 13 years ago, the RMOW, Whistler Community Services and some local service groups like Rotary and the Lions got together to help build a thrift store that could take donations of used goods.

Right now the new management team at the WCSS Re-Use-It Centre in Function Junction are starting to drop that ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ look that most employees get in May. There is a lot of STUFF at the store! It is the time of year that most of our seasonal workers leave and locals spring clean their closets. If you ever want to see what happens to things people are getting rid of, the receiving area of the store is an interesting place to observe for an hour or so. It is a testament to our team’s constitution that they don’t just throw in the towel and walk away from the job; or rather crawl out from under hundreds of black garbage bags to leave. At the store every single bag is opened, any of that 'Whistler stuff' that is clean enough, and still useable is sorted, priced and put out onto the shelves. Most of us have never physically worked as hard as many of the staff at that store. And the items coming from those bags are amazing! 

It turns out that Whistler has good STUFF.

But the story would come to an unhappy ending there if the stuff just sat on shelves. There always has been a strong contingent in Whistler that understand that they can bypass the material economy, help the environment and save themselves a lot of money by shopping second hand. In Whistler, is has almost become chic to tell your friend that the new designer shirt you are wearing was found at the Re-Use-It Centre. 

Last year there were 49,000 purchases made at the store. And over 300 metric tonnes of good were saved from the landfill. That shows that Whistler’s stuff can be used again. If you have goods that you no longer want, and they are still in clean, unbroken and useable condition, we want your Stuff! And if you have a friend that doesn’t know where to take their old stuff, tell them about the Re-Use-It and Re-Build-It Centres.www.mywcss.org

Finally, if you want to get rid of BIGGER stuff like furniture or appliances that still work, arrange for a pick up at the Re-Build-It Centre at 604-932-1125 or rebuildit@mywcss.org . Watch for the first ever Community Clean & Care Day Saturday, June 16^th, where we will be picking up donations of used furniture and household goods in Bayshores. For more information contact the Re-Build-It Centre.

Whew, Hello Spring Cleaning Season!

Spring has Sprung! It's that time of year where you start to think about changing up your skis for running shoes, your snowboards for downhill bikes, your jackets for bikinis and board shorts... well, maybe nobody's jumping in the lake just yet, but there's more than a hint of warmth in the air, and goggle tans are plentiful...

Spring means different things to all of us. Here at Re-Use-It Centre it means Hard Work! Between the seasonal workers starting to leave town, and realizing their suitcases are already more than full, and our locals who get struck by that "everything must go" spring cleaning feeling, we end up with piles of treasures to sort and sift through... all kinds.

At times the pile is overwhelming; no matter how fast you work, the pile gets bigger. The sensation of moving backwards is hard to ignore! Our super staff have managed to develop a wonderfully Zen attitude of "all good things in time". And truly we do rely upon and expect the silly season; Whistler just wouldn't be Whistler without it.

What does this mean for you, our community of shoppers and donators? If you're making a donation, remember we're open 11am to 6pm and be sure to donate in our opening hours so we can make the most of your donated items. You can bring them in bags or boxes, and the only things we'll pass on are helmets and kids safety equipment, for safety reasons.

If you're a shopper, well... get into it! This is the best time of year to score awesome thrifted items. We still hold our weekly clothes sales, and follow our 50% off after 3 weeks deal... The quality of donated items at this time of year is unreal, and we're starting to put out summer clothing and sports equipment, so make sure you get yourself down to rifle through the treasure.

Here is the taste of the treasure we're seeing this week:

 The classics surface regularly at The Re-Use-It Centre. Give yourself a taste of culture on those rainy spring days!

Decorate your home with a piece of art.

Keep warm with a stylish Burton women's hoodie on the days when summer feels a little far away...

 Keep the kids happy with many many titles to choose from at only $1 each!

Invest in a paddling pool for the hot summers

And what goes better with a paddling pool than a summery bikini?












Dress the part for summer in one of our surf brand tshirts...

Or, if it's not feeling like summer at all to you, perhaps you're looking for a pair of spring skis to enjoy the plentiful snow base we're still seeing on the hill?


Come by to divest yourself of some material possesions, then shop to fill the space your spring cleaning has left in your life!

We'll see you soon!


Helen, Manager at The WCSS Re-Use-It Centre

Upcycling: Books

There are always countless books coming into The WCSS Re-Use-It Centre. A lot of these books are holiday and travel reading, with plenty of best-sellers and modern classics pumping through the store at a steady rate. For $2 a book you can't really go wrong: read it, pass it onto a friend, take it around the world with you to read on trains and planes...

We do also find ourselves with large pile of books that are slightly less desirable, for various reasons: water damage, torn pages, outdated knowledge, or super-specific information that Whistler folk have often escaped past lives in the outside world to avoid.

I shudder at the very thought of trashing books. Having grown up reading and having majored in English Lit at university, books are friends and teachers to me. So I'd rather avoid sending them to the compactor where and when possible.

I've found some amazing ideas for upcycling those books that are no longer reading material, for whatever reason.

Some artistic upcycling ideas include:

This tree:

This dress and more at this blog:

Or more practical ideas, like book shelves made of books! Find the how-to here.

Try a plant potted into a classic novel (plus more upcycling ideas for plant holders here).

Or, go all out and use books as bricks! This is the counter of my favorite bookstore in Melbourne, Australia.

Ladies and gentlemen, the world is your oyster! Come down to The Re-Use-It Centre and rescue a few books to create something amazing and unique. Perfect projects for those rainy Spring days...

Enjoy.


Helen, Manager of The WCSS Re-Use-It Centre

Community: A night at Creekbread!

It's inspiring and heartwarming to spend a night like we did on Tuesday the 20th of March at Creekbread, local pizza place and avid supporters of the Whistler community.

The Re-Use-It Centre was approached by Pamy from Creekbread who wanted to hold a benefit night to show their support for us. A show of support like this is more than just a one-off, and stretches a lot further than you would imagine. Creekbread has a wonderful weekly benefit night running; each Tuesday a non-profit is supported with a portion of sales ($3.50 from each large pizza, $1.75 from each small pizza) going to the cause.

Beyond that, Pamy and Brittany went out into the community to ask local businesses to donate prizes to raffle off during the night. They collected us prizes from David's Tea, RimRock, Le Gros, Ruby Tuesday, Deb Hillary at the Oracle, Dups Burritos, Rolands & BBQ Bobs, Scandinave Spa and Fruv. We were able to raise just over $400, a great amount of money, selling tickets to customers.

The response from the public was amazing, and it really shows clearly how well-loved Creekbread is as a community presence in Whistler. Their staff all supported the event, playing along with our silent auction to win retro ski suits and jackets, piggy banks and ponies... The atmosphere in the restuarant is lovely: warmth from the wood-fired oven, the smell of fresh quality ingredients cooking, and the smiley happy staff working away at feeding and entertaining their customers.





Myself, Sarah and Julie were involved as representatives of WCSS Re-Use-It Centre, with Sarah chatting up the customers for raffle tickets and Julie looking after the silent auction table. We had such a great night (and enjoyed a tasty pizza ourselves) being uplifted by the atmosphere and good feelings of the night.



Friends and other staff of Whistler Community Services Society came by to support and munch pizzas. We're grateful for each and every one of you that took time from busy lives to show us that you care.

A great big thank you and loads of warm fuzzy feelings to Creekbread: Tammy, Pamy, Brittany, the host and the servers, the bar staff and all those hands in the kitchen pumping out delicious pizzas. We loved being part of that night with you all and we'll definitely see you soon for another tasty meal!

With love,

 Helen & The WCSS Re-Use-It Centre staff.

Do yourself (and your taste buds) a huge favor and check out Creekbread if you haven't been there yet:
2021 Karen Crescent, off Route 99 in Creekside, Whistler BC. Check out their menu at their website, or phone them at 604-905-6666. You won't be sorry!

Photoblog: Goofy tshirt collection (Part 1)

We get a lot of silly, crazy & weird t-shirts in at The Re-Use-It Centre... Here are our staff member Julie's picks over the last 2 weeks.

Stay tuned- more to come.


Helen, Manager at The WCSS Re-Use-It Centre