Salvation Army Upcycle Program An Innovative Twist on Thrifting

In Maple Ridge, B.C., The Salvation Army recently launched a program called UpCycle. Every Tuesday and Thursday, members of the community can come to the UpCycle trailer and trade in their old items for gently used ones. No money required.

Richard McAfee, Genesis caseworker at The Salvation Army Ridge Meadows Ministries, shares how the program came about and how it's helping people recovering from addictions.

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Kristin Ostensen  

This is the Salvationist podcast. I'm Kristin Ostensen. It's like a modern trading post, a thrift store with a twist. In Maple Ridge, B.C., The Salvation Army recently launched a program called UpCycle. Every Tuesday and Thursday, members of the community can come to the UpCycle trailer and trade in their old items for gently used ones. No money required. Here today to discuss the program with me is Richard McAfee, Genesis caseworker at The Salvation Army Ridge Meadows Ministries. Well, thanks for joining us today, Richard. It's great to have you on the podcast.

Richard McAfee

Yeah, it's definitely awesome to be on the podcast. 

Kristin Ostensen  

Wonderful. Well, I can't wait to hear about the UpCycle program. So, can you tell us first off, when did this program begin? And where did the idea come from?

Richard McAfee

Yeah, definitely! The idea for UpCycle came from one of our practicum students who had noticed how many donations we turned away at Christmastime due to a lack of storage space. She wanted to see us set up a table and have those donations out for our clients to be able to access during certain times of the week. And around the same time, the territory put out a request for proposals for the innovation grant as part of Mobilize 2.0. And so, the idea was born to create UpCycle and have those donations stored and available to our community year round. So initially, the idea was around, like, to repurpose shipping containers, but we ran into some snags with our city. And so, we purchased a brand-new 20-foot cargo trailer and outfitted that instead. While we're still building out the bike shop portion due to supply chain issues, the clothing part has been a real hit. The bike shop will be up and running by mid-summer and that’s space for our transitional residents to fix bikes from the community in a safe and controlled environment. We received $60,000 from the innovation grant and $1,000 from the City of Maple Ridge through their own innovation grant, and gifts in kind from West Coast Metro Floors, Heritage Electric and countless other community partners.

Kristin Ostensen  

That's wonderful. Thinking about sort of the nuts and bolts, how does UpCycle actually work? What's involved?

Richard McAfee

So, it's actually a really amazing thing. So, the community donates a fair amount of clothing to us. And what happens now is it comes up to the transitional program, and the guests here clean, sort, fold all of that, and then they end up stocking up our trailer with it. And I don't know if you've seen our trailer, but it's like a really cute kind of boutique style. So, you go in there, and it's kind of like walking into a store. And the idea is like, when they walk in there, they feel comfortable, you know; they don't feel like they're begging for anything, anything like that. We want to just stay away from that. We want them to feel comfortable and feel like, normalized, you know, so they walk in and there's a counter right there, one of my clients will be there to greet them as they come in, help to find the clothing they need. And yeah, we basically just keep restocking it as needed. So, every time one of my guests opens for one of the shifts, which is Tuesday and Thursday, we do it from 11 to 12. So, right before community meals so people can come get some clothing and then come inside and have a meal as well. My clients will go down there, they'll check the stock, they'll put new stuff down there. And maybe the weather's really nice so they'll put some more summer clothes down there; it's raining, you know, try and find stuff with hoods. They stock it right up, they keep an inventory of it. And then as clients come in, they just help them. We usually let two to four clients in at a time. And it's been a really good experience because at the same time as serving the community and giving out this clothing to people, they’re able to be giving back to the very same place that helped them, right.

Kristin Ostensen  

Yeah, let's talk about the Genesis transitional housing program because, of course, you look after that program as well. Can you tell me about the program and then talk about how people from the program are involved in UpCycle?

Richard McAfee

Definitely. So, Genesis transitional housing program is a sober living program. We house four women and 10 men. We recently just launched the women's dorm; we didn't have one for a long time. We had one woman's suite, and then we had 13 men. But now we have a full woman's dorm, which is kind of a cool thing that we've launched to be a safe place for women to heal. We're basically a three-month to a three-year program. So, we get people in here, we get them working on SMART goals. SMART goals are simple, achievable goals, you know, stuff that moves them towards their housing goals. So, from the second that they enter my program, the first thing I'm working on is: what is your exit look like? Because that's the end game. Where do you want to be when you leave the Genesis program? Does that look like you want to be housed with roommates? Does that look like you want to have your own place? Does that look like you want to be full-time employed? And then based on the information they've given me, I tailor their journey here to that, right? So, first year, I really focus on them looking at the inward stuff—working on themselves, making themselves happy, making themselves feel good, you know, whether that be going to counseling, going to therapy, going to groups, going to meetings. And then second year, we look at starting to work on the outward stuff, right? Do you want to go back to school? Are you thinking about employment? Are neither of those an option, and maybe we need to go another route? And then third year is just primarily housing because as you know, right now, housing is really hard to find. So, I'd like to dedicate that whole time, so they have time to look around, and they're not in their last couple months here and just taking whatever place opens up, because I want them to transition out of here and be comfortable and happy with where they go. So, the clients from Genesis are involved because this is a completely client-run program. And so, when we started it up, I was with them, I was kind of showing them how it was going to run because I wrote up a procedure on how it would run for the first month or so. But as of this week, it's completely run by them. So, they have keys, they go down there on their shift, they open the trailer, they set it up, they hand out the clothing, they close it down. And it's like just something that's for them; builds job skills, builds life skills, and I think really makes them feel that sense of accomplishment. The other aspect is, and this is something that I wasn't even thinking when we originally launched it, but it's something we've adapted. We've started going out into the community as well. So, we were invited out to Indigenous Day here in Maple Ridge. And we took the trailer out there and we set it up. And we're able to meet community partners and people out in the community, and they were really able to see what we're trying to do here in the Genesis program, as well as there’s a community resource called the Hub. It's called the Homeless Hub, and a lot of the homeless people in Maple Ridge frequent it. There's a lot of service providers there. We were invited over there to set up and we had a huge impact there; we dealt with a lot of clients. And we just really got the word out there about Genesis and about UpCycle, and we were just really able to serve the community there.

Kristin Ostensen 

Absolutely. So, UpCycle is open to the community on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On average, how many people come through the trailer on those days?

Richard McAfee

So, it's very sporadic. It could be three people, depending on what time of the month it is, how the weather is, and upwards of 16 people. So, it's very random. I think it just depends on who's in the neighbourhood, who is in need of clothing, you know. If it's raining out, we're probably going to get a lot more people because they want some dry clothes. Whereas if it's sunny out, people are probably out enjoying the weather, and they're not so worried about coming and getting a new outfit from us.

Kristin Ostensen  

Right, makes sense. And how have people from the community responded since it launched in April?

Richard McAfee

I mean, I think the community is pretty excited because we've been invited to these events. And while we were at these events, we actually got invited to keep coming back. They want to keep us as a part of their events. So, what we did at Indigenous Day was, where the local farmers market is, and the farmers market person actually came over and they're like, “Hey, we would really like to have you here, like every week.” And then, same with the Hub, they're like, “We'd like to see you over here more.” They want us to be more involved. So, I think the community reception here is really good.

Kristin Ostensen  

Yeah, that's wonderful. What would you say are the ultimate goals of UpCycle? And how does that fit into our mission?

Richard McAfee

I would say to come alongside our community and provide the most seasonally appropriate clothing in a safe and dignified environment. Like, just really to be beside them and show them we care about them. And let them know we're Salvation Army. That's what we do. We're here to help people.

Kristin Ostensen  

And how do you see this program evolving or expanding the future? You mentioned, for example, that the bicycle aspect is launching this summer.

Richard McAfee

I'm pretty excited about that because the idea behind that is we're really thinking we want to take donated bikes and fix them up for families in need. Or be—just take bikes from families and, say there's a family who can't afford to fix their child's bike, just bring it by and we'll fix it for you and get it back to you. You know, so it'd be like, maybe around Christmastime, we have a donated bike, we'd fix it up and we'd be able to give it to a family in need. But then when we're out in the community, like at a community event, possibly just opening up the bike shop for people to come by and get their bikes fixed by the Genesis clients. They're all going to be trained on how to work on bicycles by Trek, the Trek bicycle company out here. So, like they're going to get some job skills out of it, and it's going to be really fulfilling for them as well. As far as the future, we have our sights set on a mobile coffee shop. This is an idea that we're working on right now. So, did you know that The Salvation Army has it's own coffee plantation in New Zealand? 

Kristin Ostensen

That's amazing!

Richard McAfee

We figured that out and we want to import that coffee and outfit a second smaller trailer and build a coffee shop that our transitional residents can take out to community events. And of course, UpCycle would be there, side by side. So, ultimately, both projects would really raise our profile the community, in Ridge Meadows, allowing us to share many stories of the programs we run and the people we serve. Yeah, like we have some big ideas—this UpCycle is kind of just the start. And we're getting a feel for it and seeing what that looks like. But we definitely want to expand and become more than that.

Kristin Ostensen  

Wonderful. OK, and if anybody has any desire to support the program or get involved somehow, where can they find you all?

Richard McAfee

So, The Salvation Army Maple Ridge, we take donations for the UpCycle program, I think it's Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m. So, they can just leave it at our front desk, and it'll end up upstairs in our staging area, and the clients will clean it up and get it out there. Or if you just see us around at a community event or you want to stop by any Tuesday or Thursday and just see what's going on, you're always welcome to come check it out, and I'm sure whoever's running UpCycle that day would love to take you on a tour and explain it to you.

Kristin Ostensen 

Well, thank you so much for joining us on the Salvationist podcast today. It's been wonderful to hear about the UpCycle program.

Richard McAfee

Thank you for having us. We're very excited.

Kristin Ostensen  

Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Salvationist podcast. For more episodes, visit salvationist.ca/podcast. And for more information on the innovation grants, visit salvationist.ca/innovation grants.