“What a year … the store has just taken off!” said co-founder Gail Glende Rost, who launched the nonprofit business – an earned-income enterprise of the Champaign Urbana Schools Foundation – with Carol Jo Morgan. The eco-friendly store offers a treasure trove of inexpensively priced, discarded materials, which might otherwise enter the local waste stream, to creative shoppers who re-use or re-purpose them for building, decorating, art, craft and school projects.

“As the store has taken on its own persona, I am amazed at what we have accomplished in just 12 months of operations,” Rost said. “This is definitely a work in progress, but we are experiencing success on all fronts. The store is alive with energy.”

To celebrate all that liveliness and creative energy, the founders are hosting a public open house/reception, from 5-7 p.m. on Oct. 14 at the store, 28 E. Springfield Ave., Champaign. Other activities, including special deals and a Facebook contest, also are taking place as part of a monthlong celebration.

Rost said her efforts to open the store were prompted by a strong desire “to have an impact on the community and reach a new constituency for the CUSF message.”

“I envisioned the store to be a place where people can meet, learn, share … have simple fun and, of course, contribute to the success of the Foundation.”

Morgan, the store’s co-founder and environmental outreach coordinator, previously organized and ran HomePlanet Inc. – a precursor to The I.D.E.A. Store – out of her home and garage to supply area teachers with free classroom materials and art supplies. Much of The I.D.E.A. Store’s initial inventory, she said, came from HomePlanet’s stash.

Because of her experience with HomePlanet and her background in environmental education, Morgan is not surprised that Champaign-Urbana residents and residents of surrounding Champaign-Urbana communities have embraced The I.D.E.A. Store concept.

The store’s popularity, she said, “demonstrates the importance people attach to quality education for our young people and to the fact that what may be ‘waste’ in one person’s eyes is a commodity with value to others. Making the inventory available to everyone at low prices means we can pass lots of materials quickly through the store for active re-use. It’s a win (eco-), win (edu-), win (arts) endeavor.”

Rost agreed that the store is winning favor and sparking the community’s imagination. And that combination is translating into immediate, measurable success.

“Through planned growth and marketing, we have increased our impact in every area,” she said. “We have grown physically from about 3,400 to over 7,000 square feet, if you count our two storage locations. And we are continuing to develop that space.”

One large area of the new space has been designed and equipped for use as a classroom. The space, which can accommodate 50 people, is used for store-sponsored workshops, open studios, birthday and other types of parties. It also is available, for a fee, to community, educational and corporate users.

Citing further evidence of growth, Rost noted that the store’s stock has increased in variety tenfold since opening, revenue has increased 200 percent, and the number of transactions has increased by 300 percent.

“We also added a full-time assistant store manager, and that has made a huge difference in consistency in service to our customers,” she said.

Meanwhile, the store has achieved its overarching goal of interrupting the local waste stream.

“Thousands and thousands of items have moved through our store, finding a new home rather than ending up in the landfill,” Rost said.

Those items – which range from “raw” materials such as metal, paper, glass, foam, and other scrap materials to all manner of post-consumer items – are donated by individuals and businesses in the community. After being sorted and cleaned – if necessary – by the store’s cadre of volunteers, items are priced and stocked on shelves and in bins, ready for purchase by the store’s diverse clientele, which include teachers, students, artists, crafters and hobbyists.

“To succeed in this demographic, we need to appeal to as broad a base as possible,” Rost said. “Open to the general public, we see all kinds of people come in – from youngsters, college students and entire families to teachers and retirees.

“Our customers are urban and rural, mixed gender, practical and creative. What they have in common is their curiosity and their appreciation of remarkable finds and inexpensive prices. They love the discovery and the ever-changing stock. “

Although The I.D.E.A. Store is unique to Central Illinois, Rost noted that similar re-use stores have been in operation across the country and other parts of the world for many years. Among them, SCRAP and Urban Ore in California, the Scrap Exchange in Durham, N.C., and Reverse Garbage in Australia.

“What makes us different is that in addition to supporting creative re-use, we were also uniquely created as an earned-income enterprise for a locally supported nonprofit. We are in it to give back to the community, which truly completes the concept.

“As with any business, investing back in the business to make it sustainable is key. Most start-ups take at least three years to see any kind of profit,” Rost added. “Our business plan calls for reinvestment rather than cash payouts to strengthen the future of the business. Even with that, we are projecting being able to meet our CUSF support goal ahead of schedule – maybe even at the end of the two-year mark.”

The key to the store’s one-year success – and to its sustained success – she said, is “commitment.”

“By that, I refer to commitment on the part of our leadership team of volunteers, our volunteer corps, our customers and remarkable donors who have always known that there is definitely some good left in any widget.”

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The store, located at 28 E. Springfield Ave., Champaign, will offer a full roster of one- and two-part art and craft workshops and open studios that emphasize the repurposing of materials from the store’s diverse inventory of items donated by individuals and area businesses. Participants can learn to make beads, using paper and fabric scraps; design jewelry from repurposed household and office items; create hand-made paper and books from discarded materials; assemble tote bags from billboard vinyl; design collages and lampshades using plastic scraps; and fashion coil baskets from VHS tapes, ribbons and other odds and ends.

Participants can even learn to create functional and decorative items from “plarn.” Plarn is made from plastic and functions like yarn.
“It amounts to cutting plastic grocery/department store bags into narrow strips and joining them together to make a length of plarn,” said retired Unit 4 visual arts teacher Shauna Carey, The I.D.E.A. Store’s new education coordinator. “Then you just crochet it together.”

Instruction begins Sept. 6 and 13 with the two-part evening workshop “Repurposed Pieces for New Jewelry Creations.” That workshop and two others will be repeated later in the semester. All workshops will take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 to 8 p.m. in the store’s newly expanded, renovated classroom space adjacent to the retail sales and display areas. All materials and tools needed will be supplied and are covered by the workshop fee unless otherwise indicated.

Registration fees range from $10 to $40; advance registration is required and can be completed online or at the store. A complete list of workshops and more information is available online at http://the-idea-store.org/product-cat/workshops

In addition to specific, structured workshops, the store will offer drop-in “deconstruction” and “reconstruction” open studios for children and adults on alternating Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to noon, beginning Sept. 3.

“Our plan is to have folks explore deconstruction by taking apart items – from books and keyboards to shoes and blue jeans – and use those parts to create something new the next week,” Carey said. “They can do this without real ‘instruction.’ We will have somebody there to answer questions if needed.”

Open studios also are planned in December from 4 to 7 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays, beginning Dec. 1, for adults and children wishing to make paper boxes, collage cards, origami and other “take-aways.”

Deconstruction studios are free; the cost for reconstruction studios is $5 per person or $9.50 for a studio pass covering both sessions offered in a given month. December open studio fees are $5 per session or $25 for a studio pass good for all eight sessions. Participants can pre-register or pay the day of the studio. More information is available online at http://the-idea-store.org/product-cat/open-studios.

The I.D.E.A. Store also will continue to offer birthday parties for all ages, craft parties and tours of the store with added options. To arrange a private party, contact the store staff at 217-352-7878.

More information about The I.D.E.A. Store, an earned-income enterprise of the Champaign-Urbana Schools Foundation, is available on the store web site, http://the-idea-store.org.

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