UC Cooperative Extension helps a community flourish and raise funds

A unique idea that generates thousands of dollars for charity every year emerged when a University of California Cooperative Extension nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor combined a local inspiration with her community's creativity.

It's a scenario that, she believes, could lift people out of poverty, reduce landfill inputs, make recycling lucrative, give volunteers purpose, enhance community pride and raise money and awareness for worthy causes.

Though the list of potential benefits sounds like pie in the sky, the advisor, Yvonne Steinbring of Siskiyou County UCCE, has already accomplished most. For the past two years, merchandise that thrift stores couldn't possibly sell has been transformed into gifts that garner boutique prices in a quaint store on historical Yreka's main street.

The inspiration came when a Madrone Hospice Thrift Store volunteer noticed that an oversupply of perfectly good used items was heading out the back door of the shop and into the county landfill. She contacted Steinbring.

"Thrift stores in larger cities do have options," Steinbring said. "The surplus can be baled and sent overseas for use as clothing or recycled textile products, such as packing materials, rags or insulation. However, in smaller communities like ours, the surplus is tossed out."

A light clicked on. In out-dated wool plaid skirts, Steinbring and a group of volunteers began to see lovely woven rugs. In out-of-style jeans, they saw beautiful, durable ragtime quilts. In outlandish silk ties, they saw unusual decorator pillows. In time, the group became known as the "Hospice Heartisans" and their visions became reality.

Steinbring's speciality is weaving.

"I was always fascinated with looms," she said. Steinbring's rugs begin as discarded woolen garments. Volunteers carefully disassemble blazers, slacks and skirts and shrink them in a hot-water wash. The sections are cut into thin strips that are then sewn together and rolled into balls. Colors and textures are carefully grouped to ensure a handsome final product. Steinbring weaves the rugs on a large stand-up loom she bought in 1970. The rugs sell quickly for $1 per linear inch.

Volunteer JoEllen Raymaker takes discarded silk ties, matches patterns and colors then sews them into patchwork pillow covers. The resulting silk pillows would make an eye-catching conversation piece in any living room.

Strips of flannel sheets and shirts are meticulously woven by hand on a simple frame loom to make comfortable "cat mats." Larger frame loom rugs woven of beautiful recycled wools are the most expensive, and exquisite, products in the store. Combining artful color and texture has landed volunteer Bonnie Schuttpelz more than one blue ribbon at the Siskiyou County Fair. After the judging, her creations are sold by the Heartisans for $95 each.

The Heartisans started small with a cramped space in the back of the thrift store. They cut the ribbon for their own store, "Hospice Heartisans Studio and Boutique," in 2001 at 209 W. Miner Street. Staffed by volunteers from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, the store is frequented by locals, tourists and travelers making a quick stop off nearby Interstate 5.

The Hospice Heartisans believe the secret to their success is quality control. Not just any handwork is sold, only particularly classy and creative pieces. A committee carefully scrutinizes merchandise suggestions and donations, accepting those with artistic appeal. The ingenuity of this business formula has been demonstrated in Yreka by $14,000 in sales during 2003. Now Steinbring has begun to take the idea beyond Siskiyou County borders.

Steinbring took a sabbatical leave from her position at UC Cooperative Extension to study the flow of discarded textiles at thrift stores and write a 10-lesson curriculum to teach groups of potential volunteers or entrepreneurs how to turn cast-offs into cash. Over the next few months, the curriculum will be tested in a variety of sites, including Texas and Mexico. Mini sessions will also be offered to 4-H members and thrift store managers in Kern and Orange counties. Steinbring is searching for additional opportunities to test and refine the curriculum.

In the meantime, Yreka continues to reap the benefits of the Heartisans program, not the least of which is a growing sense of community.

"We've formed friendships, which should not be undervalued," said Mary Ellen Bryan, a Heartisan volunteer and member of the Madrone Hospice board of directors. "The Heartisans Boutique has given us more connection."

(March 2004)

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