Celebrating 33 years of serving the community, North Bay’s Rebuilt Resources continues to turn people’s unwanted items into treasures for others and ultimately, money for local organizations.
“We are a charity, second-hand store. People donate and we sell,” explained CEO Maureen Brazeau, who has been a part of the organization from the start.
“After we’ve paid all of our bills here, our uniqueness is that our money goes back into our community.”
Over its three-plus decades, Rebuilt Resources has made substantial contributions to local organizations.
“It has been well over a million dollars. We did $160-thousand just last year,” Brazeau noted.
Some of the recipients through the years have been One Kids Place, the North Bay Regional Health Centre Foundation, the Crisis Centre, the Gathering Place, and the North Bay Food Bank.
“The thing is, we don’t do national campaigns; everything stays local.”
Rebuilt is also proud to “provide job training and employment to people with disabilities, and other disadvantaged individuals.”
Located at 1356 Regina Street, people shop for specific items or browse for unique pieces.
“You’ve got your bargain hunters, your thrift hunters, that sort of thing,” Brazeau pointed out.
“We do clothes, glassware, furniture, doors, and windows, things that can be reused. We no longer offer pickup service with that, so people have to get it to us. We stopped that before COVID hit, and we’ve decided to stay with that.”
What can’t be sold is recycled.
“By keeping large amounts of material out of landfills, the organization supports environmental sustainability.”
All fabrics are accepted.
“We take clothing, bedding, curtains, and if it’s not good enough, we recycle it. We send it out, and we get paid by the pound. It gets recycled and made into reprocessed materials, carpets, and all kinds of weird stuff,” shared Brazeau.
“Lots and lots of stuff passes through here. We could do 200 cars on a Tuesday.”
Other items include books and albums.
Items people sought 33 years ago aren’t necessarily what people want today. Bric-a-brac or knick knacks aren’t as popular anymore.
“What was a collectible 20 years ago is not really collectible today. Nobody wants your grandmother’s dishes, and that’s true,” laughed Brazeau.
“Social media has really changed because in the 33 years I’ve been talking about Rebuilt and what we do, a lot of people never understood what the process was when we’re sorting, whereas if you follow us on Facebook, you can see what 36-thousand pounds of clothing looks like in five weeks. You can watch that. You can see if we’ve got some odd stuff that is going on sale or going into auction. So, people can actually follow it, and if they drop in and say, ‘show me what you do,’ I have no problem. It has been a hard thing to explain over time.”
Their slogan is “Come treasure hunt with us,” and there have been some amazing treasures found over the years, including a donated painting that turned out to be quite valuable.
“This painting came in, and it looked like my grandson, and I could have done it, and he was four at the time, but it had a really cool frame, so we hung it up. It turned out to be a famous picture. It went for $5-thousand, and then they put it back on the auction block and they made even more off of that,” grinned Brazeau.
“When I put it in there (on-going auction), I didn’t know it was worth three cents. I just thought the frame was cool. We had people from Sudbury call who heard about it. I never know what I’m going to deal with when I unload a car or a truck and go through the stuff. And I’m not the master of all either. I probably missed some really good stuff.”
Select items, like the painting, may find their way to the front of the store as part of ongoing auctions.
“What’s in that auction? Weirdness usually. Again, we can’t be the masters of everything, but old game systems do really well, some old musical equipment, sometimes we throw stuff in there just to see what is going to happen. We do some of the jewellery.”
The building is neatly filled with thousands upon thousands of items dropped off by people purging their home or donating estate items.
“More estates are in the spring, which is interesting. When you’re doing your fall cleaning, all that stuff that ends up at your front door, that’s what we’re taking.”
Money from those sales gets “recycled” back into the community.
“That’s the whole point.”
Billed as “North Bay and Area’s #1 non-profit reuse centre,” Brazeau is thankful for the support it has been given over the years, leading to its success.
“Our wonderful community, this is our community. These are our children, and this is our village, so if we all work together, then it works.”
Rebuilt is open Tuesday through Saturday, closed Sundays and Mondays. Tuesday hours are 9-5, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 9-4, and Saturday 10-3. It is important to note that this is not a consignment store.
“Drop-offs are 9-3 Tuesday to Friday, anything Saturday is just clothing and furniture because most people move furniture on Saturday, and all hands are on deck just with that on Saturdays.”