Big Bend Habitat for Humanity reopened its ReStore in a new location after roughly nine months of being closed.
Located at 1219 W. Tharpe St., the property is larger and allows for more visibility compared to the Marpan Lane warehouse location the nonprofit occupied since about 2008.
The new location looks more like a retail store, said Executive Director Antoine Wright, adding the site opened about a month ago and is already driving in more foot traffic.
“It’s centrally located near Tharpe (Street) and Old Bainbridge (Road), which gives great access to neighborhoods like Griffin Heights, Frenchtown to Old Town to a number of neighborhoods,” Wright said.
The new location allows for more community engagement. In the future, Wright envisions classes for the public that will allow residents to learn DIY tips and skills that may include, for example, resurfacing furniture. In addition, he said the centralized location cuts down on drive time for volunteers and motivates more residents to chip in.
“When we were down on Marpan, it’s down south of town, it takes someone 45 minutes to drive down there if they wanted to volunteer,” Wright said, who said the store is constant need of volunteers considering the nonprofit’s small staff.
Big Bend Habitat for Humanity helps inspiring homeowners with affordable homes by allowing them to provide “sweat equity” toward the costs of building it.
The store’s relocation is a pivotal means of raising funds for the nonprofit considering its the largest fundraiser, helping to pay for salaries and other costs.
For nonprofits overall, most have seen a steady decline or fluctuations in corporate giving, donation, charitable giving and grants, which Wright said has forced nonprofits to “generate their own revenue streams, whether through stores like this, or other services.”
Wright also said the reuse of materials that would otherwise be tossed as trash is diverted for better use instead of languishing in a landfill.
“Everything that in that is in that store is something that is kept out of the landfill,” Wright said. “We’ve been running (the store) for 12 to 15 years. We’ve literally kept thousands of tons of readily available, usable, salvageable, good building materials out of our local landfill.”
Another benefit, he said, is that the store continues to be a resource for anyone looking to cutdown on costs associated with building or the upkeep of homeownership.
In today’s economy, coupled with tariff costs, wage disparities and other factors, Wright said housing is going to more critical than ever and the ReStore fills in gaps that may make a difference.
“The need has never been greater to have safe, secure, affordable housing,” he said. “I think that our work is going to just become more and more critical and also harder to do. So it’s just more expensive to build, more expensive to buy lots.”
Contact Economic Development Reporter TaMaryn Waters at tlwaters@tallahassee.com and follow @TaMarynWaters on X.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Big Bend Habitat for Humanity brings back its ‘ReStore’ in new location
Reporting by TaMaryn Waters, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
