ReUse-apalooza empowers individuals, advocates

Designers, do-it-yourselfers, the environmentally friendly and people who generally enjoy a good time will gather May 17 for Northside’s fourth annual ReUse-apalooza.
 
Building Value and its parent-organization, Easter Seals TriState, host the annual event to raise awareness about reuse and to support on-the-job training and other programs that assist people with disabilities.

This year’s event will include the Designer Challenge, which highlights some of the work BV does. The organization reuses building materials to create everything from useful pieces for the home to works of art.
 
Items will also be up for auction, and according to Lisa Doxsee, communications manager for EST and BV, it’s a way to “assist individuals with disabilities and disadvantages to more fully live, learn, work and play in their communities.”
 
Each year, the event raises close to $30,000 of unrestricted funds, which allows the closely connected nonprofits to further their missions by enabling individuals who might otherwise have difficult times securing employment to learn necessary skills and gain experience.
 
“They just can’t seem to get both feet on the ground at the same time, and they just need some assistance in getting the education or the training they need and the opportunity to learn,” Doxsee says. “When they do, they’re able to move out and get their own jobs and fully support themselves and often start to train others—it’s really a cool thing to watch.”
 
Not only does BV help put people to work, but the organization also helps keep materials out of area landfills.
 
“What we do is go into a home, and maybe you wanted a new kitchen cabinet set, so we take out your kitchen cabinets in a way that it can be reused and resold,” Doxsee says. “We’ve taken down full homes and salvaged 60 to 70 percent of the home with the lumber and products that come out of that.”
 
The ultimate goal, however, is to provide the ability to succeed to those who have encountered barriers in the past—whether those barriers be physical, mental, economic or educational.
 
“We believe that every person deserves to feel the thrill of success—no matter what that success is,” Doxsee says. “So everything we do is to try to help empower those individuals to find success in whatever it is that they need.”

Do Good:

• Support Building Value and Easter Seals TriState by purchasing a ticket to ReUse-apalooza.

• Donate to Building Value and Easter Seals TriState.

• Volunteer with Building Value and Easter Seals TriState.

By Brittany York

Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.