Ella Rose’s Corner: Where Repair Becomes Love in Action

If you have spent time at the ReBuilding Center, you know Ella Rose’s Corner.

It is the checkout booth.
It is also the heartbeat of the place.

This is where people pause.
Where projects are admired.
Where someone unsure they can fix something hears, “You’ve got this,” and believes it.

Ella Rose has worked at the ReBuilding Center for 21 years. Through changes in buildings, staff, and seasons, she has remained a constant presence. She welcomes people in and sends them back out a little more confident than when they arrived.

That kind of care shapes a community.

The Power of Small Moments

A checkout counter might not look like the center of transformation. But spend a few minutes near Ella and you will see it.

She remembers names.
She asks about projects.
She celebrates repair over replacement.

She notices the quiet wins and names them out loud. And that matters.

Confidence is built in moments like these.

Repair Is an Act of Love

February is often associated with big gestures of love. At the ReBuilding Center, love looks more practical and more powerful.

It looks like fixing instead of discarding.
Learning instead of giving up.
Choosing reuse, creativity, and care.

That is why this month we are launching Spread the Love, a Community Storytelling Series that lifts up the real experiences behind repair and creative reuse.

What Spread the Love Is About

This is not about perfect projects.

It is about the first time you used a tool.
The thing you fixed that you did not think you could.
The pride that comes from trying.

All February, we are sharing stories that show what is possible when people have access to materials, skills, and support.

Just like the conversations that happen every day at Ella Rose’s Corner, these stories remind us that repair is about participation, not perfection.

Why Stories Matter

When someone shares a project, finished or unfinished, it does something powerful.

It makes repair feel approachable.
It builds confidence.
It gives someone else permission to try.

Over the years, Ella has witnessed thousands of these moments. Spread the Love is our way of making them visible.

Join Us

If you have taken a class, repaired something, donated materials, volunteered, or simply stopped to talk at the counter, you are already part of this story.

This February, we invite you to:

• Share stories and photos of something you repaired, reused, or created on social media and tag us-  Facebook and Instagram

• Email your photos and stories to info@rebuildingcenter.org and we’ll share them on our website

The Heart of the Place

Ella Rose’s Corner is not just a spot in the store. It is a reminder of what holds the ReBuilding Center together. People who show up. People who care deeply. People who make room for others to learn.

Repair is an act of love.
Reuse is an act of care.
Community makes it possible.

This February, let’s Spread the Love by sharing what is possible together.

The Work Behind the Find

Every good find at the ReBuilding Center has a backstory.

Before a tool lands in someone’s hands or a door finds its second life, it has already moved through a series of decisions—by donors, drivers, and salvage handlers—each shaping what reuse looks like in practice.

Reuse begins in the community, when someone chooses to donate instead of discard. From there, materials arrive at RBC—either dropped off on site or picked up by our drivers—and enter a carefully managed flow that turns generosity into shared resources.

On the Road and at the Dock: Alberto & Elijah

When donations need a lift, Alberto and Elijah are the ones who make it happen.

They’re out across Portland picking up materials from homes, job sites, and businesses, navigating tight driveways, weather, and loading zones—often while making quick calls about logistics, safety, and timing. They’re also part of what happens back at RBC, unloading donations and keeping materials moving into the system.

They see patterns most of us miss. They know which days tend to bring in the good stuff. And they’ve noticed something else too: regular customers who know the rhythm of our operation well enough to linger near the unloading area, casually checking out what’s coming in next.

It’s one of the clearest signs that reuse isn’t just practical—it’s exciting.

Where Everything Gets Decided: LJ, Junior & Nicole

Once donations arrive, they land with LJ, Junior, and Nicole, our salvage handlers and the people who touch, sort, assess, price, and place every single item that comes into the store.

They make hundreds of small decisions every day—about quality, usability, safety, and value—that determine what makes it to the floor and how accessible it will be to the community.

If you ask them what moves fastest, the answer comes without hesitation: tools.

Tools don’t sit around. They’re picked up quickly by homeowners, renters, artists, tradespeople, and DIYers who rely on reclaimed materials to get real work done affordably. That insight doesn’t come from reports—it comes from standing on the floor, watching what people reach for first.

This work requires experience, judgment, and attention. It’s part logistics, part curation, and part intuition—and it’s essential to making reuse actually function.

Why This Matters

Frontline staff don’t just keep things moving—they shape the entire reuse experience.

They see what people donate.
They know what the community is looking for.
They understand how materials flow through the system—and where things can get stuck or shine.

As we kick off 2026, we want to start by naming that reality.

Reuse isn’t automatic.
Reuse isn’t effortless.
Reuse is built—donation by donation, decision by decision, shelf by shelf.

And it’s built by people who know the work from the inside out.

Every Day Is Christmas at the ReBuilding Center

If you ask Matt Elias, our Online Sales Specialist, what it’s like to run the ReBuilding Center’s e-commerce operation, he’ll smile, shake his head in amazement, and say the same thing he says every single week:

“Every day is Christmas.”

And he means it.
Because every day, Matt unwraps treasures.

Not the kind you’d find under a tree, but the kind that arrive tucked inside donated toolboxes, buried in buckets from garage clean-outs, hidden behind panels of reclaimed wood, or handed over carefully by community members who say, “I hope someone can use this.”

And more often than not—someone can.

A Daily Parade of Possibility

Matt’s world is a river of unexpected finds: vintage hardware, rare architectural salvage, hand-forged tools, midcentury fixtures, ornate drawer pulls, industrial oddities, reclaimed lumber, antique hinges, and the kinds of one-of-a-kind objects you truly cannot find anywhere else.

Some pieces are hyper-local—snapped up by Portland makers, homeowners, artists, and DIY dreamers. Others travel far beyond Oregon, shipped to customers across the country who are hunting for exactly what Matt lists: the just-right part for their restoration project, the missing piece of a repair, or a bit of history they couldn’t find anywhere else.

It’s a daily reminder that reuse connects us—across neighborhoods, cities, and time.

The Stories We Keep in Circulation

Every object that passes through RBC carries a story.

A doorknob from a 1910 craftsman.
A vintage saw restored to working life.
A cabinet hinge with fingerprints from three generations.
A pile of reclaimed cedar siding that smells like summer from a house long retired.

Matt doesn’t just photograph and list these items—he honors them. He sees their potential, their history, and their future home.

Because at the ReBuilding Center, we don’t just move materials.
We move stories, memories, and possibility back into the hands of people who will make something new.

It’s one of the purest expressions of our humanity: recognizing value where others see waste, and placing it back in community circulation so someone else can build, repair, or reimagine a second life.

A Circular Economy, Powered by Community

Matt’s work is one slice of a much larger ecosystem—one that keeps hundreds of thousands of pounds of usable materials out of landfills each year.

The ReBuilding Center is Portland’s oldest and largest reuse organization, and our online sales program is a crucial way we extend our reach. When Matt lists a 70-year-old tool and ships it to a woodworker in Vermont or a film set in California, that object becomes part of the circular economy in action:

• Extract less.

• Reuse more.

• Reduce carbon emissions.

• Keep materials in play longer.

• Support jobs, creativity, and community innovation.

Every donation fuels this cycle.
Every purchase strengthens it.
And every “Christmas morning” moment Matt experiences is only possible because someone chose reuse instead of disposal.

We Need Your Donations—And Your Stories

To keep this magic going, we rely on materials donations from our community. If you have:

• Tools (old or new)

• Building materials

• Hardware

• Fixtures

• Lumber

• Unique or vintage pieces

• Oddities with character

• Cabinets, doors, windows (in good condition)

• Items too interesting to throw away

…we would love to see them.

Your donations keep Matt’s “Christmas morning” alive, help makers and homeowners find what they need, and play a direct role in reducing waste and protecting our planet.

More importantly:
You help us keep stories—and resources—circulating in our community.

The Heart of What We Do

When Matt says, “Every day is Christmas,” he isn’t talking about surprises alone.

He’s talking about delight, gratitude, and connection.
About the joy of finding something unexpected.
About giving materials a second (or fifth) life.
About seeing strangers in Oregon, Ohio, and everywhere in between light up because they found exactly what they needed.

And beneath all of that, he’s talking about what makes the ReBuilding Center who we are:

A place where nothing is wasted.
A place where stories matter.
A place where community, creativity, and climate action meet.
A place where every day brings new gifts—for all of us.

A New Chapter for Reuse in Portland

A message from our new Executive

When I first walked through the ReBuilding Center, I felt something electric in the air—a hum of creativity, possibility, and purpose woven through every salvaged door, reclaimed beam, and shared conversation in the aisles. It wasn’t just a store. It was a living demonstration of what a circular economy looks like when a community chooses to reuse, repair, and reimagine together.

Today, I’m honored to step into the role of Executive Director of this beloved organization—one that has been keeping materials, stories, and opportunities in circulation for more than 25 years.

In my two decades of nonprofit leadership, I’ve always been drawn to the kind of work that asks us to look closely at what we already have—within us and around us—and imagine what might be possible if we use it differently. That is the essence of the circular economy: designing systems that restore rather than extract, repairing rather than replacing, and valuing people as deeply as we value the materials in our hands.

And here in Portland, the circular economy isn’t just an idea. It’s our heritage.

Portland has long been home to a network of reuse stores, salvage yards, tool libraries, repair cafés, makerspaces, and community workshops. Long before “circularity” became a global buzzword, our neighbors were reclaiming wood from old houses, salvaging hardware, fixing broken chairs, and helping one another build something new from what already existed.

What is new is the urgency.

Climate justice now begins at the neighborhood level.
Repair skills help people stay safely in their homes.
Nearly 30% of Portland’s landfill waste comes from construction and demolition alone.
And every cabinet, 2x4, window, or fixture we keep in circulation reduces carbon emissions and expands access to affordable materials for someone else.

Reuse is climate action you can hold in your hands.

Every time a homeowner salvages instead of replaces, emissions drop.
Every time someone patches drywall instead of buying new, carbon stays out of the atmosphere.
Every time you donate something usable, you extend the life and story of materials that are already here.

At the ReBuilding Center, our role is to make those choices easier, more accessible, and more joyful. Through our retail store, education programs, salvage services, and community partnerships, we’re working to strengthen the circular economy that Portland was built for.

As I begin this next chapter, I’m excited to work alongside our dedicated staff, board, volunteers, and partners to deepen our impact—expanding our education programs, strengthening retail operations, growing workforce development opportunities, and helping Portland reclaim its leadership in the national conversation about reuse, repair, and resilience.

But most of all:
I’m here to help rally our community.
Because the future of Portland’s sustainability story won’t be defined only by policy or infrastructure. It will be shaped by the choices we make in our homes, garages, workshops, and neighborhoods—what we choose to reuse, repair, and reimagine together.

Here’s where each of us can start:

Before you toss something, ask if someone else could use it.
Before you buy new, look for reclaimed.
Fix one thing you would normally replace.
Donate materials that still have life in them.
And create something new from what you already have.

This is climate work that doesn’t require a grant, a task force, or a new tax.
It requires attention, creativity, generosity—and a little bit of Portland’s original spirit.

Thank you for welcoming me into this community.
Together, we can build the next chapter of Portland’s climate story—one salvaged piece, one repaired item, and one creative idea at a time.

— Debra Vanderwerf
Executive Director, ReBuilding Center

Jackie's next chapter (and ours)

Our next chapter

A Message From Our Board

With deepest gratitude for her service to the organization, the Board of Directors of the ReBuilding Center announces that Jackie Kirouac-Fram will be stepping down from her role as Executive Director later this summer. Since 2019, Jackie has led the ReBuilding Center through significant growth and evolution – deepening our roots and stewarding us through challenging times. 

As a Board, we want to thank her for her years of dedication to our mission and our team. She has profoundly transformed our organization and the reuse landscape in the Portland region, raised significant funds to expand our capacity, revived our brand, developed new partnerships, broadened our offerings to support low-income homeowners, and partnered with the community to understand and address urgent needs. Some of her key accomplishments include:

• Advocating for public funding for reuse and partnering with Metro to inform the creation of the Reuse Impact Fund

• Transforming our store to increase accessibility and offer higher-quality materials

• Raising the starting wage for frontline employees by nearly 30%

• Building a significant financial reserve to ensure the organization can weather economic downturns

• Increasing annual fundraising revenue by more than 300%

• Launching the Home Repair for All program, designed to serve low-income homeowners with free home repair classes, resources, and community-building

While we will greatly miss her, we are thrilled that Jackie will continue to grow and strengthen reuse efforts across the country as a Senior Consultant for RRS, a national consulting firm that specializes in circular economy and materials management. She will continue to lead the ReBuilding Center through September 4.

Over the next two months, we will identify an interim leader to guide the organization during this transition and launch a search to identify the next Executive Director of the ReBuilding Center. We will share the job announcement soon and ask for your help in identifying candidates who match our values and can help us grow our ability to joyfully serve our neighbors through low-cost, community-focused reuse.

We are deeply grateful for Jackie’s contributions, and for your continued support of our work – as a customer, a student, a material donor, a financial supporter, or an advocate. We all love this place!

If you have any questions or concerns during this process, please feel free to reach out to me directly at chair@rebuildingcenter.org.

In gratitude,

Holloway Huntley

Board Chair

The ReBuilding Center

A Note From Jackie

After thoughtful reflection, I’ve made the decision to step down from my role as Executive Director of the ReBuilding Center. Serving this organization has been the greatest honor of my professional life and I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished together. The ReBuilding Center is a stronger, more community-focused, more equitable organization than when I arrived here six years ago, and I am endlessly grateful for the team, board, donors, funders, partners, and community who’ve made it all possible. I’m also thrilled to be moving into a new role that will allow me to continue to advance reuse across the country, and share even more broadly about all the excellent work that is happening here. 

And while transitions are never easy, I’m genuinely excited about what’s ahead for this beloved organization. Our mission is vital, and our momentum is real. I’ll be cheering from the sidelines — and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

In gratitude,

Jackie