ReStore on the hunt for donations

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This article was published 10/09/2022 (1259 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The ReStore in Brandon is in need of donations such as furniture and other household items.

The Rosser Avenue shop released a pamphlet asking for specific items it can accept for resale, including new toilets, door handles, sinks, bathtubs, household furniture, laminate flooring, light fixtures and floor and table lamps.

Inventory levels rise and fall all the time, said ReStore Brandon manager Ryan Pandolfi. The pamphlet is a helpful reference for anyone, from individuals renovating or moving their homes, to contractors and even retail businesses with overstock looking for a place to unload their items besides the landfill or private sale.

In addition, staff and management at the store are reminding people they are on Rosser Avenue and not affiliated with the Building Re-Fit Store on 12th Street. While they have a similar mandate, they are different entities.

They are also a different kind of hardware and retail store, as they sell repurposed and gently used furniture and appliances to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity.

“We get a lot of overstock from retailers and we’ve been very fortunate with their generosity, but we price everything based on helping low-income families and getting people to buy and take it home. We don’t want it sitting here collecting dust. We want to be known as a place where you can buy quality items and save yourself a couple hundred bucks.”

They have a wide acceptance for items, but there are a few restrictions. All items have to be clean, from a good home environment, free of bugs, mould and ready to put on sale as soon as it is inspected and cleared.

“We are not a garage sale-type place and we are not here to save people a trip to the dump [if it isn’t salvageable],” he said.

“We try to be respectful in the sense that we will resell some items, but we want to be meaningful and know that someone will buy this.”

Support and sales have been good, but they could always be better, he said. They receive a lot of support from building supply outlets like Rona and Home Depot, as well as local companies like Wesman Salvage and CanadaInns.

Even then, there are times when inventory seems low to shoppers and that’s true, he said, so ReStore and Habitat for Humanity has to issue calls occasionally to get more items.

In the five years Bonnie Mills has been at Habitat for Humanity as community engagement manager, she said there were several occasions she found items in the store to buy for her own home and office. One surprise came when she found a set of doors for her home at the store that were identical to a set she found at a local retailer. The ReStore, of course, was selling them for a much lower price, she said.

Even small building projects like ice shacks and sheds can benefit from the ReStore’s lower prices, she said. “You find all kinds of miscellaneous pieces here, it’s like treasure hunting,” she said. “Sometimes it’s those very odd things you are looking for that happen to be here.”

The ReStore concept was born out of Habitat for Humanity’s building projects in Winnipeg, where construction crews were trying to resell fixtures from buildings that were being renovated to raise funds.

That helped launch the ReStore and spread across the country as the organization’s retail branch.

“It’s a visual representation of Habitat for Humanity building the communities they are in,” said Mills.

All profits from the ReStore go directly back to Habitat for Humanity building projects, Mills said. While Habitat for Humanity and the ReStore are part of a national network, each local organization and storefront only fundraises for their local community. All money stays in the community to help with building projects and support the community’s growth.

Habitat for Humanity in Brandon has been very successful and is growing in terms of builds and partnerships as well, Mills said. Habitat for Humanity builds homes for low-income families to help them become homeowners at affordable prices and with special terms.

What they don’t do is give homes away, said Mills. The organization partners with qualifying families to help them get into a home. They still have to pass qualifications, including meeting an income threshold, credit checks, be employed full-time and agree to put in at least 500 hours of what is called “sweat equity” to build their specific home.

The organization is looking for more families to apply for a home, Mills said. It builds at a rate of about two homes a year, but this year they completed four thanks to additional funding. There will be another four homes next year as well.

To learn more about applying, visit habitatbrandon.ca, or contact Mills at bmills@habitat.mb.ca.

» kmckinley@brandonsun.com

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