Just a little recap from a big year (2023)!

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Hey financial donors, because of your support, Upcycle Parts Shop has strengthened this year. That was the plan, that’s how it has gone and you have played a big role in making it happen.  We’re not done yet, but it feels so good to get support like yours. 

Here’s a tiny recap of what we've done in 2023: 

  • Built new funding sources and secured new philanthropic support for our work and our mission, including two-year support from the Ohio Arts Council —our first time ever getting funding from them! 

  • Deepened and expanded our entrepreneurship education programming, built new relationships with more schools throughout Northeast Ohio, reached hundreds more students and more than doubled the number of ‘innovation kits’ (packaged up materials) we’re sending out to schools in multiple states! 

  • Received an award for this work –the  Community Impact Award from Dominion Community Foundation! We were one of 11 non-profit organizations in Northern Ohio to be chosen for this award (and $10,000 check!)

  • Received funding from 100+ Women Who Care  —Linda, our material donor turned champion, started her presentation to the group with “I’ve been a part of 100+ Women who Care since it started in 2011 and I haven’t brought a non-profit forward because I haven’t found one I feel passionate about until Upcycle Parts Shop”   —------------------ s w o  o  n ! —-----------------------  They chose us! We’ve been so impressed by this collective model of individuals sending in checks totaling $10,000. This support has helped us build our capacity to offer workshops at the shop!

  • Hired new staff! Team building is a constant work in progress with so many factors and variables. We are really excited by the new capacity of Frankie, program coordinator, Zakiya, shop specialist, Candace, shop specialist, and Shelly, Marketing & Hype support.  And we continue to count on more than a handful of event staff who help us education and creatively encourage folks of all ages all year long throughout the region. (We call them our Upcycle All Stars, and they really are).

    • At this point, everyone at Upcycle is part-time, but we get a lot done in many ways, and the shop’s open consistently 12-5 Wed-Sunday, slinging goods and processing donations from the 30+ generous material donors who bring in their goods each month. Plus our program team is ready to pack up the upcycling and roll up their sleeves with your group (we mean it!)

  • Worked toward this dream: EXPANSION! For months we’ve been talking quietly about this dream taking shape. It’s still coming and it’s still quiet for another week or so but we want to bring you in on the exciting news. Expansion won’t mean moving from where we are, and it WILL mean more than doubling the space we have to deliver on our mission and its growing impact! That means some new programming, too.

    • We’ll be going out to some places where senior citizens already live and gather, and we’ll be inviting them to the shop! This group has always been a primary audience for us, and we’re delivering what they’ve been requesting for years: hands-on programs on ground level and the chance to create and build relationships with one another. 

    • Swooning, we tell ya, swooning.

Last year, when we launched our Circles of Support recurring donation program we had a hunch that many people support the work we do, and want to support it in new ways. And our generous donors confirmed that hunch. Your financial support has bolstered this organization and is taking it to new places! We are so grateful and we also are so good at expanding the Circle of Support! If you’re not already supporting this small but mighty organization, jump in right here. We are ready for you to be part of it!  And thanks so much for reading until the end. We knew we liked you! And we can’t wait for you to join us.

love,

your friends at Upcycle Parts Shop

Social enterprise education: prototyping a business concept that address a social problem

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A few weeks back Kaliya & Nicole attended Neighborhood Leadership Institute’s True2U summer camp for high school freshmen. We brought the upcycled goods to lead one of our favorite workshops ‘‘social enterprise education’ –a program that encourages future leadership by engaging students in our business model and then challenging them to design business for a social problem they care about. With upcycled materials and tools. Right then and right there. After some time to work in groups and rapid-prototype, they share their new business design. It blows us away, every single time. 

Image of 3 high school students upcycle with secondhand materials in front of them to design a prototype for their new social enterprise business idea

We recently received a Community Impact Award from Dominion Community Foundation for this program!  Along with 10 other organizations doing excellent work in Northern Ohio, we were honored to be recognized for reaching students with innovative & creative entrepreneurship education.  

Marissa Siebert on the far left was Upcycle’s Program Director that came up with our social enterprise education program! Nicole McGee in the middle, our co-Founder & executive Director holds the award (made from recycled glass, from a local company called Streets of Manhattan) Kaliya smith, second from right, is Upcycle’s current program director and on the far right is jaclyn Balliet, program manager of the Veale Foundation, the social enterprise education program’s longest philanthropic supporter.

This award came with a $10,000 check, a gorgeous award (locally made recycled glass –come see it behind our donations counter!), and the pleasure of a beautiful luncheon at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. It was just lovely and we’re smiling. 

The best part of this hands-on workshop are the ideas that students come up with. Young people are so, so smart and so naturally good at innovation. Here were some of the social enterprise business prototypes we were introduced to at the True2U recent workshop: 

Basketball nets from recycled materials that are cheaper than what’s on the market for kids whose playgrounds don’t have nets

A vehicle that picks up animals along the side of the road and helps them however they need it, including giving them a proper burial in the case of roadkill (!)

A company that sends a gift of support to young people that come out as gay to their families to help them feel support (see image below!)

A company that makes wigs and hair decor for people struggling with cancer. 

And more. In just 1 hour.  It’s a remarkable experience each time, and each time, we learn and grow right along with the students. 

Do you know an educator who might be interested in this kind of programming? Great! There’s funding support to offer these programs at no cost to them, thanks for funding support from the Veale Foundation and the Reinberger Foundation. High School educators throughout Northeast Ohio, learn more here and book a field trip to come see us! And all educators can check out the incredible resource  of the YIPPEE Marketplace through Youth Entrepreneur Institute (YEI) and look for Upcycle Parts Shop’s offerings (including kits, hands-on programming, STEM curriculum and a complimentary bag to fill in our shop). 


Upcycling in the trees

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Upcycling in the trees

It was our first time stringing up upcycled community designs and calling it tree decoration!

It was a magical day at Rid-All farm on Kinsman for the annual FreshFest community festival on September 10, 2022. We were asked by event leaders to lead a tree-decorating hands-on station, in partnership with Western Reserve Land Conservancy, a wonderful organization that does many things, including tree education and tree giveaways. The best collaboration was born as we talked details and they affirmed that yes, our idea would work well, they would bring the ladder and climb the tree, and no, it wouldn’t hurt the tree.

We grabbed plastic parts like lids (so many lids) and other shapes. We drill holes into them (we ❤️ our drill press) so that they go from not useful to full of stringing/building potential. And then we chose rainbow as our color theme.

Pro-tip: when all kinds of things can be designed and options are wiiiiiide open, we choose to create limits so creativity can thrive. Choosing a color theme is a good limit. Rainbow allowed lots of color but eliminated black, white, silver, gold, and brown lids, which helped with the visual unity of the end product!

Community members upcycle with secondhand materials to decorate a tree at Cleveland FreshFest

Community members who wandered over to our table were invited with a simple gesture: help us decorate this tree! Choose a ribbon, string or attach any of these materials (options: zip ties, staples, or more string), and let us know where you’d like it to hang when you’re done! Blissful upcycling ensued.

Her happy place

is in the trees, and we were so glad about that! Erica Henrichsen of Western Reserve Land Conservancy made tree decorating happen with her ladder & love of tree climbing!

Erica was the expert tree climber and truly we couldn’t have done it without her! Big thanks to Kim Foreman, FreshFest festival lead, for the idea and invitation. We’re so happy with what we collectively created. And we hope Rid-All Green Partnership enjoys the colorful community-created tribute to the vibrancy your space generates! (Y’all can reach out when you’re ready for us to pack the creative reuse project back up :)

Our mission is to Provoke Creativity and Promote Community through Reuse, Resourcefulness, and Relationships. We’re grateful for alllllll the ways so many people help us meet this mission every day. This is people-powered work, demonstrating reuse and diverting tons from the landfill along the way!

Welcome Jo Schierloh, our new John Carroll summer intern!

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We’re lucky to partner with John Carroll University’s Summer in the City program to host a full time intern for 10 weeks and we’re so excited to welcome Jo to our team. During her time with us Jo will share blog posts about her work at Upcycle Parts Shop. Thanks Jo!

6/7/22 Week #1 by Jo Schierloh

When you first walk into Upcycle, you are instantly hit with a sense of curiosity; What is this place? Who will I meet? What can I make? If I walk into the basement to fill my $10 bag, will I ever come back up? You may not know all these things when you walk in, but you will always leave knowing the mission of Upcycle. You’ll leave (and this is probably two hours later if you chose to explore in the basement),feeling like you have met a new friend, enjoying something in your hands, and already planning your return visit.

Working with Cass and Jayne in the store has shown me the hard work that goes into accepting, organizing, pricing, putting out donations, and interacting with the customers. While doing so, they prioritize customer service by greeting each customer individually, asking their name, and sharing the mission of Upcycle so customers know what they are contributing to. 

In addition to working in the store, I have also been able to see behind the scenes. I joined a meeting with Dasha, Upcycle’s Community Outreach Specialist, and other neighborhood stakeholders who work together to support one another. Dasha is so talented at connecting people in the community and really highlighting the St. Clair Superior neighborhood as a place with a lot of good and potential. It is inspiring to see her work as I learn more about the neighborhood and her ability to facilitate the voices from the community to form a collective plan. 

Different people and organizations are always coming to Upcycle to learn! Future entrepreneurs from the SEA Change NEO came to Upcycle to hear Nicole and Jessica Davis (from Rebuilders Exchange) share their experiences of being entrepreneurs in the for-profit and nonprofit worlds. Throughout the night, the topic kept coming back to the importance of community. Both Nicole and Jessica have a history of working in many different places and jobs;what always brings them joy is being part of a community. 

Upcycle is a place where people can come to and feel this sense of community. I felt part of the community right away when Nicole invited me and the Upcycle team and supporters to a social mixer. That’s me in the top left corner! I will be interning through the summer, and will post weekly updates. Everyone has a home at Upcycle, and I'm so glad it has already started to become that for me. The community truly is built through reuse, resourcefulness, and relationships. 

A story about love, growing up, and coming full circle

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Nicole here, co-founder of Upcycle Parts Shop. I like to write and tell stories. I also like to connect with people and get creative. Here’s a story I wrote to share with you, with some of all that in it!

Some people draw hearts to represent love. Hearts are great, but I draw circles. I love circles because they represent connection. Their roundness and generosity, the way that the round lines can encircle what we care about, and how they come back to where they started, but only after going around and taking up some space first. Circles and  love.  It’s the time of year where love is a popular topic, and I have a story to share about love, and it’s love coming full circle. 

Love is the best thing we do, and it's about time we apply the best thing we do to the places we live and work.

We’re quoting writer Peter Kageyama here, like we often do. Because he writes about cities and how it FEELS to live in communities. How it feels when there is purpose, connection, belonging. Those feelings are…you know, LOVE. (Learn more about Peter and how he talks about love affairs with place here)

Time for the story: 

Around the time when this organization was just a twinkle in the lights of Cleveland, I was pregnant with my now 9-year old son. If you ask me about it, I’ll talk in metaphor about my human baby and non-human baby and how they’re siblings to one another. I’ve always been invested in raising them both. In infancy I balanced one on each hip, toddler years I held both their hands. And now I walk between them both, marveling at how big they’re getting and how lucky this journey has been.

Months ago Harvey came home from school and said  “We have a new art teacher and she brought in a bunch of materials for an art project and I asked her where she got them and she said Upcycle Parts Shop. I told her my mom works there”  That was awesome. I marveled at how it felt when things just work on their own. An art teacher knows where to get creative supplies, when resources connect, how cool. And my boy recognized the supplies so he asked her about them.  Love it!

AND THEN, the school invited parents to an art-opening of the exhibit, called “Because it’s Fun” at the Cleveland Museum of Art.  We went, along with lots of families, teachers, and Cleveland’s new Mayor! Harvey got to meet the Mayor! And the student artwork made from so many recognizable pieces of Upcycle Parts Shop looks GORGEOUS on the walls of the exhibit hall. 

…..And meanwhile, just a half mile away, the shop was open for retail shopping on a busy Saturday, and plastic bottles were being transformed into flowers upstairs in our workshop room. It was just a regular Saturday, but special on so many levels. My babies were living their best life on just a normal weekend, Cleveland’s new Mayor came to see the show, and my boy got to chat him up about his Flamin’ Hot Cheeto inspired art (made with classmates, from pool noodles).

I met the Artist in Residence, Megan Young, and thanked her for sourcing materials for this months-in-the-making student art show from Upcycle Parts Shop. I kept quiet about how she honored both my human and non-human babies at the same time, but I felt it. And I wanted to tell someone about it, so thanks for reading. Love, coming full circle, is a lot what our work at Upcycle Parts Shop is about.

Mayor Justin Bibb discussing art made from upcycled materials at the student exhibit at Cleveland Institute of Art. Photo Credit: Cleveland Institute of Art

Last year, it seemed like a great idea. 

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Last year, it seemed like a great idea.  Encouraging educators to bring their own laundry baskets and fill them up for $5.  We learned that cheap creative supplies are a very compelling offer for motivated educators, and our facebook post about it spread like wildfire. After we had a few stress dreams, we galvanized volunteers, made signs to direct folks, opened up a side entrance, and met the earlybirds 30 minutes before the doors opened.  And we still felt like ride operators at Cedar Point. ‘Party of two? Two people just left out the front door, I can let 2 more in’ I found myself saying from the lobby of our side door while a board member would signal to me at the exit. Whoops, laundry baskets are big in our small shop!

It was that popular, and educators were that awesome, that they never made it feel like it might be annoying standing in a line with their baskets and making friends with strangers.  It wasn’t annoying for us either, to be honest. It was invigorating. We saw 112 educators in 6 hours last August, not to count children and spouses (the ones that dutifully tagged along, the others that bailed to wait in the car :) 

That we can be generous AND fill a need at the same time?! It warms our hearts to bursting! This year, we expanded our educator promotion and reduced the intensity of it. Phewww. And yay!

ALL AUGUST LONG, educators can come, shop with us, and fill their byob tote bag from all kinds of treasures in our basement after they spend $5 in our shop.  It’s a good deal, we promise, because the basement is loaded with good stuff and is more organized than ever.  

Below are the details. We’re open Thursdays & Fridays 2-6 and Saturdays 10-4 and this educator promo goes all the way to the end of the month.  After it’s over, we’ll continue these hours but the filler-up byob promo will end.

Two more things to note: Yes, educators, you should come back more than once!  We get new donations every day we’re open, so what we have is always changing. And, yes, we were intentional in that ‘educator’ language. This includes home schoolers, troop leaders, daycare directors, and teachers.  You educate, we applaud you. And supply you, we hope. 

Onward!

Love, 

Nicole & team 

The deets are below, from the lovely Cass:

It's the annual Upcycle Parts Shop Educator Appreciation Sale!

Whether you work in a school, day care, are a troop leader, are a grown-up teaching homeschoolers, or a student teaching grown-ups, we want to honor those putting forth long hours into shaping, strengthening, and expanding the minds of our city's people.

This is how it's going down, educators:

Step 1: Bring your reuseable shopping tote from home. (please no IKEA bags or laundry baskets- let's be courteous of others needing material support.)

Step 1.5: Consider bringing a donation of materials that no longer serve you so that another educator can have a chance to bring them home! (visit our website for donation guidelines + policies)

Step 2: Visit Upcycle Parts Shop on a Thursday/Friday 2-6pm or Saturday 10am-4pm. There is street parking available + a large parking lot behind the shop as part of the Slovenian National Home. Both are free!

Step 3: At the register, sign in as an educator with a valid name, email, and your program/organization.

Step 4: Spend at least $5 in the shop on materials (or donate $5). THEN, head DOWNSTAIRS to our fill-a-bag section. Fill up your tote with anything you can fit! Participants are limited to filling 1 bag downstairs per day.

Step 5: Come back through August to do it again! Tell your friends to consider donating their unneeded creative materials to help keep the basement full of fun stuff all month long.

What you'll find at our shop:
We are a small space (900 sq ft) stocked full of paper, art + craft supplies, fabric + sewing supplies, office supplies, plastic and colorful bits, fine art supplies, hardware, binders, wood pieces, maps, wallpaper, magazines, media, and more!

Who we are:
Upcycle Parts Shop is a non-profit dedicated to provoking creativity and promoting community through reuse. In our retail storefront we sell low-cost craft supplies generously donated to us by individuals and organizations in our community. With these materials we also lead creative and educational programming/workshops both in-house and throughout Cleveland + its surrounding suburbs. Since opening in 2014, we have diverted over 26 tons of usable material from the landfill

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Thank you for teaching us, educators!

Upcycling for the Ritz

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The scrap that ended up working best was his own in House scrap pile, so while the pieces at our shop also came from him, we pulled right from this box for all 200 bookmarks, then I walked away with the box of skinnier scraps from that! you can find…

The scrap that ended up working best was his own in House scrap pile, so while the pieces at our shop also came from him, we pulled right from this box for all 200 bookmarks, then I walked away with the box of skinnier scraps from that! you can find them for sale in our hardware section in the shop :)

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I’m not going to lie. I didn’t think it would work. When the kindest woman ever from the Ritz Carlton hotel reached out to share they were looking for custom handmade bookmarks for use as guest amenities, preferably silver, I didn’t think we here at Upcycle Parts Shop would be the right fit. We’re scrappy. They are the RITZ! So, we talked about that. I shared my concerns, and we agreed we would proceed and then communicate if it wasn’t the right fit. (We’re learning this is just the right process for most things in life and work, isn’t it?) Our fun and up-for-innovating-small-business owner friend Gary runs Initially Yours Engravers in Lakewood, and he was phone call number one. When the Ritz said silver bookmarks, I thought of the flat rectangle scraps Gary has been donating for years, multi-sized, sometimes sharp on the edges excess cutoffs from plaques and trophies. We had boxes of it in our shop basement, some ancient, some new, in gold, brass, and silver. Gary loves creative projects and does printing as well as engraving, and he was game. So after discussion on the right kind of scraps and a tutorial on how to tell if it’s a good-to-reuse-scrap of silver or not. (honest here again, I still can’t tell) plus some innovating together, listening to more sports talk radio at his shop than I ever have in my life, prototyping and me learning how to use a machine that rounds corners (I fell in love with that machine. It literally cuts corners!), we had a sample. The Ritz gave us their thumbs up, and ta-da, economy from reuse! It worked! Two hundred bookmarks and a happy customer later, it was a thrilling project and we hope for more like this. Less waste, more guest amenities!

Truth is, this is my humble dream, to create more and more and more economy from reuse! The dream version is to hire more of our neighbors in St. Clair to do it with us. Step by step. Scrap by scrap!

Gary is great to work with, in case you have a creative project that could benefit from his printing on metal, engraving, and general make-it-look-fancy skills, find him on an old but functional website: iyawards.com, call him and ask him to turn the radio down!

Thanks for reading,

Nicole, on behalf of a killer upcycle team, and with 5% more ability to talk sports than before this project ;)

Above: This is Frankie on the left, and She’s the kindest collaborator ever! She’s standing with Nicole, co-founder and Artistic director Left: This is Gary, co-visionary and owner of our favorite place to get fancy thing printed, Initially Yours a…

Above: This is Frankie on the left, and She’s the kindest collaborator ever! She’s standing with Nicole, co-founder and Artistic director

Left: This is Gary, co-visionary and owner of our favorite place to get fancy thing printed, Initially Yours at 15028 Madison Ave, Lakewood

Meet Dasha:  Neighbor, Intern, Customer Service Extraordinaire 

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Meet Dasha.jpg

"When I'm old enough, can I work here?"  It was one of the first things our neighbor Dasha said to us when she, her mom, and her little brother came into our shop in the late spring of 2014. We wouldn't open until July and we were moving furniture around, painting everything we could, and hoping we would have enough creative material donations to open (we did, and we haven't spent another minute worrying about that, because you all are so generous!) 

The blinds were closed, Dasha was embarrassed because her mom knocked on the door anyhow, determined to try to engage the way she wanted. We know this because we heard them talking on the inside of the closed blinds, and we opened the door and invited them in to see what we were planning.  It was this friendly curiosity that first made us feel welcome in Cleveland's St. Clair neighborhood, and it was that day that Dasha asked if she could work for us. So you can imagine we're proud & excited that the now 17 year old is our first ever teen apprentice/paid intern!!

Dasha was newly 13 when we first met her, and that summer her brother CJ and her volunteered with us everyday.  It was their family that first made us feel welcome, and her grandma and mom who one day brought by 2 large trays full of vinyl letters being sold for cheap at a garage sale. "We got these for you" they said.  "You clearly 'get' us" we said back, with gratitude.  Dasha was helping us run a Hackathon event on the campus of Case Western Reserve University earlier this month, and we snapped a few picture and asked a few questions. 

Where do you go to high school Dasha? Ohio Virtual Academy, it’s an online school, which is basically the same as a brick and mortar school. We have teachers, deadlines, projects, but what’s really nice is the flexibility of it.  That’s the benefit.

Why is flexibility important to you?  As I get older there are more things that I want to do with my time.  Being able to have more time for religious purposes is important to me. I’m able to do more than I could if I went to a traditional school

What excites you about being an intern at Upcycle Parts Shop?  The opportunity to meet more people. I think it’s an opportunity to get into things that I wouldn’t be able to usually.  Problem solving comes up a lot.  I like that. And I like working with people; other staff and customers.   These are important for the field I want to get into.  I want to be a computer support technician.  When people have problems they’re not usually happy so being able to change my perspective to reflect how they’re feeling and helping them feel better and solve their problem in an efficient way is my goal.