More than 45 community members filled Dramatic Hall to learn how they can participate in the local circular economy, the subject of a community forum sponsored by the Peekskill Herald on Saturday, June 6, entitled “Waste Not, Want Not.”

Panelists included Barbara Korein, founder of Retake/Remake, Johanne Read, founder of Mendbyme, and Courtney Williams, founder of Westchester Alliance for Sustainable Solutions (WASS).  The event was moderated by Regina Clarkin, publisher of Peekskill Herald, which hosted two previous forums. The New York Community Trust funded this forum and the previous one.

“I got the idea for this when I realized that there were two businesses here that expanded in the last year, both founded by women about five to seven years ago, and I thought, how many people know about this circular economy and what actually is the circular economy,” Clarkin said.

Retake/Remake salvages arts and crafts materials

Retake/Remake, located at The Hat Factory, promotes creative re use, environmental awareness and community by providing affordable reclaimed arts and crafts material. Since opening in 2022, Korein said they have diverted more than 207,000 pounds of arts and craft supplies from the waste stream.

Items donated to the store include office supplies, sewing equipment and fabrics, wrapping paper and cards, thousands of rubber stamps, as well as unusual, fun, and weird items like vintage Barbie dolls, yellow containers from the Fulton Fish Market, and X-Ray scans of an insect.

Donors include people moving, people downsizing, supplies for children who have outgrown them, and people cleaning out their homes. Customers include teachers, parents, students, crafters, fine artists, and eco-conscious consumers locally and across Westchester county, Korein said.

“One thing we hear again and again is how grateful people are to have a place where they can donate supplies to,” Korein said. “They understand the value of their supplies. There’s a real emotional connection to maker’s supplies. We encounter people who are cleaning out their parents’ homes, and they have 50 years of sewing supplies or painting supplies. And we really feel that part of our function is to help people kind of have closure on not throwing out things that were very dear to them when they were living with parents.”

In response to an increase in donations, the non-profit in March rented a garage across the store to open a donation center. The store started with four volunteers and has since grown to 30 regular volunteers who log about 100 hours a week and work to make donated items look desirable.

“Retake/remake has just grown in so many amazing ways,” Korein said. “We feel that Peekskill has been a really good fit for us. It’s very arty, it’s very eco-conscious. It’s a place that seems to have a lot of people pulling together to try to make it good, so it’s been our honor to be in the Hudson Valley, and also just part of the circular economy that seems to be very strong in Peekskill.”

Mendbyme creates free community closets

Mendbyme (pronounced “mend by me”), operating out of donated space at the Elks Lodge, breathes new life into donated, used, and dormant clothing and items, creating free community closets that provide essential resources to those in need, said founder Johanne Read.

Key programs include quarterly community closets, providing gently used clothing, shoes and textiles to over 2,300 families annually; bike refurbishment and donation days in which it partners with organizations to repair and donate bikes; and Hudson Valley Repair Café, which encourages circularity by helping the community mend and extend the life of their belongings. 

Read said the business started pre-Covid in 2019 when then-Mayor Andre Rainey offered space for a pop-up shop at the Kiley Center to offer the community free gently-used clothing, shoes, watches, towels, linens, beddings, and pillows. 

“Mendbyme started because I wanted to think about a second life for anything I found,” Read said. “Even with my kids. They wear fast fashion, throwing stuff away, not reusing it. I started with getting my daughter’s sneakers, because we were the same size. And she’s like, ‘I’m done with my Converse.’ I’m like, ‘I’m not, give them over.’ And I found that a lot of people were in the same boat so my donation stream grew.”

Since starting, volunteers have served over 2,300 families, and moved more than 40,000 items of clothing and household goods, currently stored at Read’s garage, supporting victims of fires in Peekskill, immigrants, and people unable to afford wedding dresses for their marriages.

The need for donations has grown so big that Mendbyme has purchased and refurbished a house at 729 South St. It will be a 24/7 space with a store set up on the bottom floor, a processing area for donations, and a laundry room, paid for in part by the Rotary Club of Peekskill. The nonprofit organization expects to move in during the summer. 

“If somebody in the community suffers from a fire, or there’s a domestic violence victim, we want to be able to help them quickly,” Read said. Right now, if somebody needs help, they have to wait until whatever day Read is sorting through donations. ” I’ve found in my mission that people want to choose what they want. They want the dignity… So having this space will serve the community better.”

WASS works to divert trash from county incinerator

Westchester Alliance for Sustainable Solutions (WASS), founded by Courtney Williams in 2021, is an alliance of community organizations and individuals from across the county seeking to close down the WIN Waste Westchester waste-to-energy incinerator at Charles Point in Peekskill, where most of the county’s garbage is burnt. 

Williams, a cancer researcher, cited a 2010 Department of Environmental Conservation audit that stated neighborhoods within a 12.5 mile radius of downtown Peekskill were home to at least two hazardous waste handlers, seven hazardous waste facilities, 19 solid waste facilities, and 27 major and minor air polluters. She also shared that a census tract of her neighborhood in Peekskill showed it had a higher environmental burden than 98 percent of census tracts statewide.

“Westchester County is choosing to burn all their garbage here, and we are dealing with the health consequences,” Williams said. “And this kind of environmental injustice is what made me take on this fight to get Westchester County to see the circular economy that we’re building here in Peekskill, to see the alternatives to waste, to burning our waste, and implement these solutions.”

Williams said WASS works to get to zero waste by working with the Westchester County Board of Legislators to educate members on the waste system, holding monthly zero waste task force meetings; working with advocacy groups to pass state legislation that reduces plastic pollution; and introducing an initiative to meet with municipal officials to discuss strategies to reduce waste.

“Generating waste is not a personal moral failing. We live in a disposable society,” Williams said during a Q&A at the forum. “Do not fall into the trap of personal responsibility, that I forgot my reusable mug and I got a disposable plastic one, and I’m the reason the planet is dying.’ That is not the case… Your time is better spent pushing for those systemic changes.”

At the start of the June 6 forum, Luke Davenport, president of the Peekskill Herald board of directors, addressed the gathering.

“Part of our mission [at Peekskill Herald] is to inform the public, but it’s also to convene the public, bringing people together to talk about important issues. This work will not be able to continue unless the community is able to support it.

“With funding from New York Community Trust and other foundations, we can help a lot, so I urge you all to please support the Herald. It’s nonprofit news, it’s not for profit, it’s not like the good old days when advertisers did all the work. We need you all as a community to support the Herald. That’s an exciting opportunity, for us as a community to have a wonderful newspaper – we can’t take it for granted. So, please support the Herald.”

LISTEN TO THE FORUM PRESENTATIONS IN THEIR ENTIRETY HERE