ReCYCLE North
Ron Krupp
316 Pine St.
Burlington, Vt. 05401
(802) 658-4143

A flea market that fights poverty? It may sound like a crazy idea, but longtime organic farmer Ron Krupp is convinced that his apparently unique concept can work, and he hopes that the next few months will demonstrate whether the community support is there.

The basic idea seems so simple that it's surprising no one thought of it before: Krupp located warehouse space on a busy Burlington highway, near the city's recycling center, and encouraged citizens to donate old appliances, furniture, and other reusable items that they would otherwise discard.

By reselling the items in a flea-market setting, Krupp says, ReCYCLE NORTH accomplishes three related purposes: Pressure on the city landfill is reduced; poor people (and everyone) are able to acquire needed furniture and other household items at relatively low cost; and -- this is the real genius of the plan -- homeless people are hired and, by learning to repair, refinish and refurbish the used appliances and furniture under expert supervision, they gain marketable skills.

"It's just like the organic farmer, who uses the manure from his livestock to fertilize the land," Krupp said with a grin. "We take the things that people throw away and use them to make money and train people."

Early response has been good -- Burlington's residents enthusiastically came trooping in with throwaway items as soon as plans for the center were announced last year, and it opened in January with a large rented warehouse chockfull of everything from refrigerators, stoves, televisions and computers to knick-knacks and collectibles.

At least 50 volunteers assist Krupp and a small staff of formerly homeless people who are paid for their work, and the center is doing a solid average of about $200 per day in sales. But it's not going to be enough to cover expenses: Krupp anticipates taking in $30,000 to $40,000 in the center's first year, but it will take $100,000 to cover all costs. He has received local support from the private sector and city and state government to cover another one-third of the total.

But the final one-third of revenue is still missing, and Krupp says the difference is going to have to come from the federal government or foundations if he is to proceed with full implementation of the plan, including a formal training program with paid staff. He sees the potential for training programs in electronics, television and appliance repair, furniture repair, upholstery and sewing, and he would also like to set up a "small-business incubator" in which trained workers could operate small repair and upholstery businesses out of the center until they get established.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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