(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — This week’s Difference Maker draws attention to WasteShed, a local nonprofit that’s celebrating 10 years of giving art supplies a second life.
When Eleanor Ray moved to Chicago, she saw a need for a reuse center here like one she had been involved with in Portland, Ore.
“There was this amazing, huge artist community; there were all these schools that were super under-resourced, and at the same time there were a lot of materials that were being thrown away or just didn’t have any way of getting reused or reabsorbed by the community,” Ray said.
As an artist who works in reused materials, it made perfect sense for Ray to open the WasteShed in Humboldt Park in 2014 to prevent excess supplies from going into landfills. The center has since moved to larger spaces and now operates two locations in Logan Square and Evanston.
“There’s no shortage of materials out there,” Ray said. “There’s an incredible richness of things that people are just desperate not to throw out that continuously wash up at our place.”
The nonprofit is mainly supported through sales — often to teachers and at a reduced price. Items range from the typical art supplies to more the unusual.
“Your paint, your brushes, your canvases, your sculpture materials, printmaking supplies [are] always popular, art tools — we just got a typewriter in the other day,” Ray said.
The WasteShed doesn’t just sell to teachers and donate to schools, though. Its education connection includes teaching people how to reuse well-worn items. Ray said they’re partnering with the Jane Addams Hull House Museum to teach people how to sew.
“People can bring their clothes, and we show the people how to mend them and repair them,” Ray said.
The WasteShed: Making a difference in Chicago.
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