ReUse Caboose & Training Center opens in Ithaca

On Dec. 16, Finger Lakes ReUse opened its new location, the ReUse Caboose and Training Center, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in partnership with the city of Ithaca and the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce.

Located at 700 W. Buffalo St. in Greenstar’s former “The Space,” the ReUse Caboose is a new retail location open seven days a week. It’s also part of a pilot ReUse Warehouse and Training Center, offering combined virtual and hands-on instruction for job skills training, in partnership with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County’s (CCE-Tompkins) Energy Warriors program and led by CCE-Tompkins’ Dr. Aloja Airewele, according to a recent press release.

Finger Lakes ReUse signed a six-month lease in August in order to provide much-needed space for materials and immediate paid job training opportunities in direct response to rising community needs due to COVID-19, said Executive Director Diane Cohen. As she explained, when the pandemic first hit in March, all ReUse locations (two at the time) stopped accepting donations, finally resuming in August.

“The material offered to us every year is usually a little more than we can handle, and because we had that pause, … we knew it was going to be just this tsunami of material,” she said. “Within 30 days, we packed that warehouse with usable materials. And it’s really been helpful for us to absorb the shock once we reopened donation drop-off spots.”

As far as the job training side of the new location, the pilot Training Center program — supported by Tompkins County, the Park Foundation, CCE-Tompkins, the Triad Foundation, the Legacy Foundation of Tompkins County, the Community Foundation of Tompkins County and an anonymous donor — was created in large part to help those negatively affected by the pandemic.

“What we were trying to do is create more opportunities for people who were seeing fewer opportunities and sliding deeper into economic distress,” Cohen said. “It’s a training ground that actually generates some revenue. … Our trainees are actually helping put materials on the shelves.”

With this Training Center, ReUse will be able to provide opportunities for skill building and developing career pathways for employment in fields like green energy, according to the press release.

The ReUse Caboose is a bright spot in what has been a challenging time for the nonprofit, Cohen explained. Overall, she said, ReUse has been fortunate over the past 10 months, mostly because 80% of its revenue comes from retail sales, something many nonprofits haven’t been able to fall back on.

To make up for what revenue couldn’t cover, ReUse also applied for assistance through the CARES Act. The funds then helped support staffing throughout the pandemic. But that didn’t mean ReUse had it easy this year. In addition to handling increased donations, ReUse has had challenges with staffing, as COVID-19 exposures or cases among staff have sent many workers home.

Cohen credits her staff for helping ReUse weather the many challenges.

“It was very disconcerting for the staff to deal with just the world being under so much stress,” she said. “And I feel so proud and grateful of how my coworkers have navigated a very, very difficult time where people’s emotions are on edge, or people are working in an exhausted state.”

Cohen also expressed gratitude for how much ReUse has been able to grow over the past year, going from almost 50 employees to nearly 80 and from two locations at the start of the year to four now (its second Triphammer Marketplace location, ReUse Community Hardware, opened adjacent to the Triphammer ReUse Center this spring).

With 2020 nearly behind it, ReUse is setting its sights on 2021. Cohen said that while ReUse’s revenues have mostly supported the nonprofit much of this year, that changed around Thanksgiving.

“[With] the rising concerns about this next wave of pandemic, the sales have gotten significantly more soft,” she said. “We’re watching that really carefully and trying to see how long we can maintain that. … We don’t have much in the way of cash reserves, so we have to be really thoughtful and creative around how we’re going to deal with that.”

One solution that has shown some promise started Dec. 24, when staff members started asking customers if they wanted to round up their total to provide additional support.

“Triphammer, in the first two hours, every single customer gave a donation, which is really heartwarming,” Cohen said. “And then we had a cashier who started in a different location, and the very first customer he asked if they want to make a donation, that customer donated $25. So, we’re hoping … over the next month that might help deal with a little bit of the gap that we’re seeing and help us get through.”

For now, Cohen is hoping the new ReUse Caboose will help the organization continue to succeed into 2021. While it is a short-term lease, Cohen expects the Caboose to be at its current location at least until spring. She encourages residents to visit the new space, as it’s currently only earning 25% of the revenue it needs to sustain itself.

“We’re consciously not having the super sales that would attract a lot of people all at once because it’s COVID,” Cohen said. “But we’re hoping people will stop by, check it out, see the cool stuff that’s there, and see if we can get it up to a point where it’s actually supporting itself and maybe a little bit extra to support some of our programs, the training program in particular.”

Cohen said staff “ambassadors” are monitoring each location to ensure they don’t exceed New York state capacity limits.

Aside from the short-term goal of survival, Cohen said that ReUse will also be focusing its 2021 efforts on increasing the awareness of the importance of reuse.

“We’re demonstrating that reuse actually works really well for people in both good economic times and more challenging ones,” she said. “And so, there’s a real need for access to affordable materials. I don’t think any of us, even those of us who work in this industry, understand the actual volume of locally potentially available reusable materials that are going into private dumpsters all over the county every day.”

And even farther into the future, ReUse is hoping to lead by example and provide a model that other communities can use.

“I’m hoping that Finger Lakes ReUse can be a strong demonstration project for other communities to consider adopting,” Cohen said. “It’s not rocket science. There are some complexities to it. The good news is that Finger Lakes ReUse is willing to share everything we’ve learned in order to further this emerging reuse industry that I think New York state could be a real leader in.”

The ReUse Caboose is now open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. A wide variety of local, reused materials is available there at affordable prices, including building materials, clothing, textiles, media, household items and lighting, with new items added daily.

Parking for The ReUse Caboose is located at the North Fulton and Court Street entrance, just across the train tracks. Purchases support Finger Lakes ReUse’s waste diversion efforts as well as its job training and community support programs. For more information, visit ReUse’s website at https://ithacareuse.org/.