On the west side of town lurks a bottomless treasure trove that sounds a siren call to arts and crafters, hobbyists and vintage lovers across the land.

Where vegetables, meat and cold medicine were once sold in the old strip mall that formerly housed an Albertsons grocery store and Longs Drugs, and then a physical rehabilitation clinic, now stand racks of donated fabrics, bins of fake flowers and yarn, barrels of trinkets, old oil paints, vintage dolls, greeting cards, sewing patterns, scrapbook paper, party supplies and all sorts of odds and ends you didn’t know you needed.

Lorrie Myers, who co-founded Who Gives a SCRAP, a creative reuse center, in 2015, had one mission: keep arts and crafts supplies out of the landfill.

Mission accomplished. By the end of May, she estimates they’ll have saved a million pounds of stuff from further clogging the planet.

“I’m shocked,” she said. “It makes me want to cry.”

The center is barely open on a Tuesday morning before antsy crafters and bargain hunters bust in, prepared to thoroughly case the joint. One never knows what’s been donated since they last stopped by. It could be life-changing or at least bring a tiny twinkle of delight.

Toni Sparks and her friend make a weekly date of being magpies – scouring the aisles and bins for shiny, cheap objects. Post-rummage, they head down the street to refuel at Panino’s and then over to BJ’s Velvet Freeze for dessert.

Today, she’s already prepping for Christmas, digging through the holiday boxes and tissue paper, going for $3 a bag, and 25-cent Christmas bags. Her rosy cheeks and sparkly demeanor reflect the thrill of a successful hunt.

“You can’t buy them for less than $1.25 at the store,” she said.

There was even that time the center offered $1 bargain bags filled with greeting cards for a penny apiece.

“You can’t do that at Current or Goodwill or the Arc,” she said.

“I leave money here,” she says as she bops around the perimeter of the store.

“She does,” said Myers, a former school secretary in Colorado Springs School District 11. “We love it when she comes in.”

The idea for Who Gives a SCRAP, which also houses 15 artist studios available for rent, sprouted after Myers took a trip to see family in Denton, Texas.

“My niece likes to go thrifting, so we went in this place, and it looked like a Michaels and a hardware store on steroids,” she said. “My niece said, ‘It’s a creative reuse center, don’t y’all have one of those?’”

Why, no, we did not. So Myers, energized by the idea, immediately called her friend Jayne Blewitt, as the two had talked for years about doing something community-minded. And sure enough, a business was born.

The reuse center first popped up at the Ivywild School, where it sprawled over 250 square feet, and they more than doubled their original goal of keeping 1 ton of materials out of the landfill.

Thrifted arts and crafts tapped into an unknown hunger running through the city, and the business partners kept growing out of their spaces before eventually landing on West Colorado Avenue. During the pandemic, though, they lost their parking space, and Blewitt also retired.

In 2020, Myers rehomed the center to its current, almost 17,000-square-foot location, where they have a giant room dedicated to processing and pricing donations, a fabric room, a movement studio for yoga and other classes, a rentable community classroom with a slew of sewing machines, and artist studios, which go for $150 a month.

Fiber artist Melissa Butch, who also dyes yarn, has been in her studio for five years. She sells her goods, teaches private knitting and crocheting lessons, and also does administrative work for the center, including doing contracts for the artists and their studios.

“When she (Myers) moved, I saw the sign and was like, ‘Oh no, I’m going to be in trouble because I shop a lot at the store,'” Butch said. “I didn’t anticipate becoming such a part of the store, but it’s been the best change.”

How it works

Donations come in, treasures go out. As Butch likes to say, “Hope you find a tray-sure.”

Accepted items include artist and crafting supplies, vintage and antique anything, jewelry, beads and baskets.

Sewing machines are also gladly accepted, and a staff member makes sure they’re in good working order. They start at $25, though Myers recently bought one for $400.

“I don’t take a discount,” she said.

Unacceptable items include bedding, pillows, single-use food containers, contemporary clothing and shoes, CDs, VHS tapes, DVDs and cassette tapes.

Bottom line: They don’t want your trash.

“When someone asks how do I know if it’s trash?” Myers said. “If you hand it to your neighbor and they say why are you giving me your trash, it’s trash.”

Donations are weighed, documented, sorted, bagged up, priced and placed aside, ready for employees and volunteers to move onto the sales floor.

Differently colored tags indicate how long an item has been on the floor. It’s full price (not the full retail price) for the first 60 days. On day 61, it goes half off. On day 91, it goes to 75% off. On the first Wednesday of the month, older items will be put into bargain bags and sold for 50 cents a pound.

“We do anything we can to not throw it away,” Myers said. “A lot of teachers come in and look for that bargain bag because they need lots of party supplies or whatever.”

And every Tuesday there’s a special. Sometimes that’s 10-cent Tuesday, when everything in a particular department priced $8 or less will run you one slim dime.

“A lot of people wait and watch,” Myers said. “We get lots of high-end art supplies. Our prices tend to be a third to half off retail. If it’s brand new in the package, it will be a little higher, but I can’t think of a time we’ve ever gone full price on anything.”

Details

Who Gives a Scrap, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, 810 Arcturus Drive, 719-375-8734, whogivesascrapcolorado.com