Vermont Business Magazine ReSOURCE, a multi-faceted organization that creates a marketplace for reuse with proceeds funding new opportunities to the under-skilled and long-term unemployed and providing poverty relief, is pleased to announce its home base is moving from its long-time 266 Pine Street location to a larger facility in Williston’s Taft Corners. The more than 37,000 square foot space at 329 Harvest Lane allows ReSOURCE to secure its own sustainability by housing its reuse store, administrative offices, workforce development programs, and appliance repair and computer departments, under one roof.
“We’ve spent two years looking for a home that will help us achieve our current and future goals,” said ReSOURCE Executive Director Tom Longstreth. “ReSOURCE has a mission to empower individuals and strengthen Vermont communities through job training, poverty relief, and environmental stewardship. The Harvest Lane location meets our requirements to do just that. It is centrally located so we can provide our services throughout the region and still be part of the Burlington community with our 339 Pine Street location.”
While the community nonprofit had long-ago outgrown its present location, the Harvest Lane site streamlines reuse donor access with a covered donation bay, making it easier and more inviting for community members to support reuse by
dropping off their gently used goods in a weather-protected area. Increased warehouse storage capacity for donations provides a greater selection and increased availability of items at all four ReSOURCE store locations in
Burlington, Barre, Hyde Park, and now Taft Corners, Williston, and will prevent more than a thousand tons of reusable goods from ending up in the landfill each year.
The building’s interior also boasts an expanded retail space; more meeting rooms; larger classrooms for workforce training programs; and increased office and production workspaces. These efficient multi-use spaces will provide more mobility and flexibility to student workstations and increase efficiencies between programs. Through these increased amenities, ReSOURCE expects its annual training program enrollment to increase from 275 to more than 500 students and trainees within five years.
Over the last 26 years, ReSOURCE has grown from a small reuse shop, selling furniture and appliances, to a multi-faceted organization that creates a marketplace for reuse with proceeds helping to fund workforce development,
poverty relief, and environmental stewardship. ReSOURCE currently trains 275 people on average each year by using its stores in Burlington, Hyde Park, Barre, and now Williston to provide job and life skills training to displaced
individuals and at-risk youth, while preventing more than 1,000 tons of material from ending up in the landfill annually. The nonprofit’s Essential Goods poverty relief program has awarded over $1.6 Million worth of goods to more than 14,000 low-income Vermonters.