On Saturday, May 2, Vancouver, Wash. gained a valuable friend and helper for homeowners, builders and ‘will-be’ homeowners alike when Habitat For Humanity opened “ReStore,” a huge (25,500 square feet) retail space on Fourth Plain Blvd. that sells donated new and used building materials and household goods for home-building, remodeling or just upgrading an appliance or two.

Also located within this new space is “CREAM,” (Computer Reuse, Education and Marketing) Computer Thrift Store, where computers, printers, monitors and other electronic products are donated, rebuilt, and resold at serious discounts. The store keeps these items out of our landfills, and helps put them into the hands of folks who maybe cannot afford a brand-new computer or needed monitor, but do need to get online for job searches and such…

Both these entities are non-profit, and are run largely by volunteers giving of their time and talents to help ease some of the pressure our community is feeling from over-full landfills and electronic waste contaminating our environment.

ReStore and CREAM together will help keep more than 95 tons (!) of waste out of our landfills!

According to store manager Mark Helly, the goal of ReStore is ‘to eliminate sub-standard housing in our community,’ and to this end, $0.90 of every dollar stays right here in our area.

Saturday, May 2 was the Grand Opening of both ReStore and CREAM, and there were many ‘Movers and Shakers’ of our community on hand to get things started in a great way!

Among the entities helping to make this store happen are Clark College, Waste Connections, City of Vancouver, Clark County, Salvation Army, Lone Wolf Investments, George Hamblin and Sam & Denise Long, among others.

Ray Johnson is credited with being the inspiration of the project and took pictures with Mayor Pollard and Robert Knight, President of Clark College.

Along with many individuals, several state agencies were involved, as well, including a $60,000 grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology.

What’s it like to go to ReStore?

Upon entering the large space, one is impressed by the neat, organized presentation of everything from furniture to appliances to paint to windows to tiles to structural components to…

There are used, recycled items alongside new, never-before-sold (but donated) items, all of it clean, identified and priced, with savings that will help build and repair many homes in our community, raising the living standard of many folks along the way.
This writer is impressed with ReStore and the people who made it happen, but I am really a big fan of CREAM.

Aging electronics is rapidly becoming a HUGE problem in our landfills, not to mention our garages, dens and all the places we’ve stashed our old computer boxes, monitors, old TV sets, that cassette player that got us through the summer of ’93, you get the idea…

All this equipment has contaminants that are often quite toxic when allowed to rot away in a landfill or junkyard, but most of the pieces can still function if given a bit of TLC and recycled. There are those in our community who are in need of that computer that is running a 3-year-old operating system, but can still get online and help with shopping or job search or?... And the cool geeks at CREAM are making this recycling happen right now!

Not only is the huge space at ReStore/CREAM set-up for retail sales, but also for donations. Yes, donations are accepted at the rear of the building during business hours every day.

To wrap-up, Vancouver and Clark County have a new, powerful ally in recycling building materials, computers and electronics, and we as neighbors and friends will do well to support these efforts to the best of our ability.

Clark County Habitat For Humanity ReStore, 5000 East Fourth Plain Blvd.; 360-213-1313; Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.

Eric Donaldson is a contributor to The Voice and master photographer for PromoPhoto.