Kaleida Update – mid November 2009

Site work and construction at Kaleida’s new Global Vascular Institute is well underway. This pic is one of a growing series of weekly interval shots taken from the City’s parking ramp on Ellicott Street. That’s City Honors HS over on the left.This $500m project comes on the heels of $100m of public investment in arts and education in the neighborhood that includes Artspace, City Honors,

Handmade Holidays

Tis the season to reuse! What better way to cut down on expenses this holiday season than to make some of your own presents? That’s where we come in. For the first three Wednesdays in December, we will be holding Handmade Gift Workshops. Each week we will make a different craft item from reused materials. The item of the week will be announced here and in our e-newsie. A small fee will apply to cover the materials we use, and we’ll announce the fee each week too. Of course anyone who’s been to the store knows we have lots of crazy & unique items that can be turned into something new and magical….and if you have any ideas of cool crafts or ways to reuse, go ahead and post them here!!

We’re starting with a pretty easy craft. For our first workshop on December 2nd, we will be making stockings and heating pads from recycled sweaters, shirts, and socks. The fee will be $5 to cover fabrics, rice and beans for inside the heating pads, and tools. The workshop will be from 4-5 pm at 158 Eaton St.

Stay posted for more do-it-yourself holiday ideas, and we hope to see you at one of our winter workshops!!!

We’re 27% NUTS!

Black Friday is approaching and like most retailers we too hope to get our books in the black. We suspect that if you are the kind of folk who line up at 4am for deals on electronics, Elmo accessories and tube socks–we’re probably not on your shopping spree itinerary! However, if you did plan to shop at our used building materials store that Friday, November 27, 2009 we wanted to reward you with a very special discount of 27% off.
We also wanted to remind you that your used or surplus building materials, tools and appliances are worth a tax deduction which might help you get in the black too.  Drop off or schedule a pickup of those materials today–contact havematerial {at} buffaloreuse(.)org
We’ll be decreasing our regular hours for the winter season. Starting December 1st, we’ll be open TUES-Saturday from 10am-6pm and Sunday from noon-4pm. And, finally, we wanted to announce our HOLIDAY CLOSING.  The store and offices will close Dec24 and remain closed except by appointment through Tues, January 5th 2010. We’ll still be reachable via info {at} buffaloreuse(.)org so please let us know and we’ll do our best to meet your needs.  We do hope to see you at our annual ReGifting Party mark your calendars for December 29th!

100 Stockings

In memory of my son James … Im organizing our 2nd event in his honor and with money being tight for everyone especially around the holidays, I thought of something simple and inexpensive but will mean so much to children who will be coming to St. Lukes for their Christmas dinner this year.  I’m asking everyone to help… each stocking will only cost less than $10 total.  I’m asking for the following items to be in each stocking so there will be no child who gets more or less than the other.
1 $5 gift certificate to either McDonalds or Burger King
1 pair of socks
2 candy canes
a candy bar

I’m hoping to get atleast 100.  We have 35 coming from the girl scout troop my friend Colleen Wayman.  We are personally doing 5.  60 or more are still needed.  Please consider helping.  These will definitely be given to children in need as they will be passed out after the holiday dinner. You are more than welcome to come with us to deliver them to St Lukes sometime around December 20-21st..Also if you are interested in sponsoring a family for the holidays let me know..But either way thank you so much..Michele
Please contact Michele about dropping off materials Shizumaru2004 {at} aol(.)com

Higgins Rally for Health Care

Supporters held a rally for Rep. Brian Higgins (NY27 – Buffalo) who voted last week in the affirmative when the house passed it’s historic Health-Care Reform bill

Buffalo Refugee Shelter Receives $275,000 Gift

At this Sunday’s Freedom Bowl, VIVE will  announce its single largest gift in the organization’s history from the Rev. A. Joseph Bissonette Memorial Foundation. VIVE will receive $275,000 from the foundation to continue its important work of serving the world’s most vulnerable refugees as well as as well as perpetuating the legacy of Father Joe Bissonette, whose life was devoted to helping refugees and all others in great need.

The country’s largest refugee shelter, VIVE INC, will host its 7th annual Freedom Bowl from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday, November 15, 2009. For the first time it will be held at Canisius College’s Student Center, 2001 Main Street, Buffalo. Tickets are available at the door, $50 general, $20 for students.

“Families, individuals, and children come to us from great distances, seeking the safe shelter, respect and understanding that they can find nowhere else,” said Michael Marszalkowski, President of the VIVE Board of Directors.

“Located in Buffalo, the City of Good Neighbors, VIVE has become the gateway to freedom for so many people from around the world.”

During the Freedom Bowl, signature dishes from the refugees’ home countries are served in handcrafted bowls from the artisans of Buffalo Clay Art. Previous Freedom Bowls have included recipes from Ethiopia, Columbia, Chad, Tibet, Sri Lanka and many other countries.

Dr. Raymond Bissonette, President of the Rev. A Joseph Bissonette Memorial Foundation, longtime Freedom Bowl sponsor said, “This is a wonderful opportunity to share a unique meal with people from all over, hear their stories and share in their hopes and dreams. It is a deeply moving experience to see the courage, determination and resilience of these diverse people. We ask Western New York to join us in support of VIVE as they continue the mission of our nation’s forefathers. Everyone should know freedom. We see our sponsorship of VIVE’s important work as a continuation of the legacy of Fr. Joe Bissonette. With this gift we’re confident that VIVE will be stronger than ever, ready to serve refugees for years to come.”

Supported almost exclusively from private and local donors, including area faith communities, and staffed by caring, compassionate professionals, VIVE provides food, shelter, clothing, legal assistance and more to people of all ages, cultures and countries. Most  of the refugees VIVE serves are escaping politically and religiously hostile regions.

Since its inception in 1984, VIVE has served 70,000 asylum seekers from 106 countries. In 2008 alone, VIVE provided nearly 4,000 refugees with 120,000 meals and 44,000 nights of shelter, among other services, at its 32,500 sq. ft., 112-bed former schoolhouse building at 50 Wyoming Avenue. And the number of refugees will continue to grow.

This year’s Freedom Bowl is co-sponsored by the Rev. A. Joseph Bissonette Memorial Foundation, the Presbytery of Western New York and Canisius College.

Tickets are available at the door and are $50 each ($20 for students) and include your choice of Freedom Bowl. For more information and interviews, contact Brian Brown-Cashdollar at (716) 892-4354 x402, or (716) 348-6199, and visit VIVE online at www.vivelacasa.org.

How To Use SeeClickFix

Activism and Community involvement has always been a big part of our mission as a source for news, information and activism in WNY.

Over the next few weeks we will be adding some great tools into the WNY community to make it easuer for you to get involved in your communities.

A tool we added back to the front page of our site after a few month hiatus is SeeClickFix. It’s easy:

• SeeClickFix encourages residents to become citizens by participating in taking care of and improving their neighborhoods. We allow anyone to:
• See – see a non-emergency issue in your neighborhood
• Click – open a ticket describing the issue and what can be done to resolve it
• Fix – publicly report the issue to everyone for resolution

Zones have already been built to notify public officials about problems that are posted on the interactive map, and over the next few days, the entire WNY community and all local municipalities will be tied into this innovative way to alert our public officials about non emergency, quality of life issues that need to be fixed around WNY.

Even better, SeeClickFix is now in Iphone app form, making it even easier for us iphoners to record problems in our neighborhoods:

Give it a try, embed the map on your site,  let’s all do our part to Make WNY an even better place to live, work and raise our families.

Extreme DECON Part II

Friday morning, November 13, 2009 Buffalo ReUse will be begin Green Demolition and salvage of another west side property at 369 Normal Ave.  The house is already slated for demolition.  “It made sense to go ahead and continue with further improvements to the street since the rest of the block is getting a facelift.  The neighborhood is getting a real morale boost,” said Michael Gainer, Founder and Director of Programs, at Buffalo ReUse.  “All of Buffalo should be proud that there will be such a huge spotlight on the City, the grassroots efforts and the generosity that has resulted from this opportunity.

Materials harvested from the demolition, such as roof joists, rafters, wall studs, interior trim, bricks and foundation stone, will be sold to the general public at low cost from Buffalo ReUse’s ReSource retail store at 298 Northampton Street in Buffalo and used to fund ReUse’s job creation and community revitalization programs.

Eric Walker, Lead Organizer for People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH), said “PUSH is taking a block by block approach, working in the community to stabilize this neighborhood. Jimmy Strach, who lives next door, has saved his Victorian home from the wrecking ball. When a guy makes a huge personal investment and saves a house from demo, we need to draw a line, take a stand and back him up on it. We also need to help community residents reclaim vacant spaces in ways that enhance and improve their quality of life. Green demolition of this house is a win-win for the neighborhood and for Buffalo.”

Buffalo ReUse sees green demolition as another way to reduce housing costs by using reclaimed lumber and other building materials from Buffalo’s large surplus of vacant houses, rather than crunch it up and throw it away at great expense.  By employing state-of-the-art green demolition techniques, Buffalo ReUse can harvest lumber efficiently and sell it to the public at costs averaging half of new material.

David Stapleton of David Homes and his team of builders welcomed the opportunity to build a new energy efficient house for the Powell family of 228 Massachusetts Ave on Buffalo’s West Side; however, there was one major obstacle in the way–the 2.5 story woodframe house the family had been living in for 4 years.  Buffalo ReUse got the call when the Project Manager was looking for a local contractor that could help them achieve an LEED Emerald Award for material reclamation, recycling and landfill diversion.  Buffalo ReUse is WNY’s first and only nonprofit Green Demolition and Salvage Crew.  They have been developing green demolition in Buffalo for over 2 years now.  Buffalo ReUse consulted with deconstruction guru, David Bennink.

David Bennink, of RE-USE Consulting, has been perfecting hybrid deconstruction for over 15 years and he has managed hundreds of green demolition projects across the country.  The biggest challenge of taking down the house was the time deadline.  “… but once I walked the building, I knew that Buffalo Reuse and I could pull off this project and my focus turned to doing it safely and finding the best way to represent the building deconstruction industry in this national spotlight.  It is likely that the building weighed about 80-100 tons not including the foundation or porch stone, or 150-175 tons with it, and of that we diverted an estimated 75% including a large volume of foundation stone hauled offsite for processing and reuse. ”

Buffalo ReUse’s rapid green demolition of the Powell’s old house was a demonstration of the practicality and economic feasibility of the technique–the house was deconstructed in under 17 hours! Our hope is that green demolition will soon be the mainstream method of demolition and the first choice for builders and municipalities in need of demolition.  Beyond reducing building costs, Buffalo’s “problem” of vacant houses can be turned into an opportunity to create jobs, train young people, fund community improvement programs and offer low-cost building materials to the public.

Volunteers from the public and Americorps WNY were directed on-site by ReUse staff and shown how to pull up flooring, prep wall panels and cut the joists in the attic so that the house could be taken apart efficiently and safely.  Hundreds of volunteers swarmed the house and salvaged interior finishes like window and door trim, baseboards, the stairwell and even piled 6 pallets of brick and 4 pallets of sandstone and limestone.  The Show chose select pieces from within the house to incorporate into its new furnishings and honor the history of the house and the family’s experiences.  Other house parts were carted off for use in adjacent houses and improvement projects in the neighborhood.
Buffalo ReUse DTech, Carrie Nader, commented, “It was great, if I needed a tool or something, I shouted for it and suddenly it appeared.  So many people were processing panels and loading trucks–all the material just disappeared.”  Amanda Alessandra operated the 10K telescopic forklift all night.  She has been a DTech Crew Leader for more than a year, “It was really a different experience to have an audience cheering for our progress as we separated each panel of the house and dropped it to the ground.”
Board Members of Buffalo ReUse were onhand to get dirty, perform safety checks, assist with cutting up the house, sorting materials, loading the trucks or spur the crowd to cheer on the Deconstruction Crew and Volunteers.
Everyone at Buffalo ReUse is proud to be a part of making a clear path of progress for the Powell family and all of Buffalo’s neighborhoods.

The Homeless Veteran

Yesterday was Veterans Day. Traditionally it is a day when people are encouraged to think about the sacrifices veterans have made in their service to their country and about the outstanding courage and moral character the men and women in the military demonstrate.

Unfortunately for the past several decades, Veterans Day has also been a day filled with stories about the issue of the very high numbers of low-income and homeless veterans.

Several local media outlets covered these types of stories:

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wbfo/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1576841/WBFO.News/Legislation.Proposed.to.Help.Unemployed.and.Homeless.Veterans.

http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/local/Homeless_veterans_stay_at_City_Mission_20091112

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wned/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1576776/WNED-AM.970.NEWS/Remembering.the.Needs.of.Veterans

The national media outlets did too:

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/25078/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/opinion/11wed4.html

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theworldnewser/2009/11/13-of-homeless-today-are-veterans.html

This issue, low-income and homeless veterans, should challenge the way we think about poverty. On a day like Veterans Day we celebrate and honor our veterans; praise them for their values and hard work. How do we make sense of the fact that so many veterans are homeless?

Usually when people discuss those living below the poverty threshold, it is a discussion focusing on how lazy and irresponsible those people are. How their poor judgment and poor moral character are the reason they are poor. How it is prudent and just for our society to stop trying to assist them. How they’re a burden on the respectable taxpayers. How it would be appropriate to sterilize, imprison, or otherwise remove those people who are incapable and non-productive elements of society.

Is this how we talk about our veterans who are living in poverty? Would we dare say these kinds of things about homeless veterans on Veterans Day?

There seems to be some disconnect. What makes the homeless veteran different from the person struggling to get by? Are there some veterans who deserve our praise and others who don’t? Certainly there are few people who would be willing to make those kinds of distinctions, especially just a couple days away from Veterans Day.

Veterans, individuals that we generally agree have solid moral character, can be impoverished and become homeless just as easily as any other person. The market economy does not care how “good” or “bad” a person you may be.

The homeless veteran should remind us that income in no way dictates moral character. To believe that it does would mean having a confusing and bitter view of the world.

GreenLeaf Campaign

The trees that were planted throughout The Queen City this past weekend were all made possible through the efforts of Re-Tree WNY.  Buffalo ReUse and 130 volunteers (we got a little of everybody–students and XCountry athletes from UB, Daemen, Canisius–the Queen City Roller Girls and even our youngest new friend, Bryant, brought his mom and sister to plant 410 trees.  The cost of our trees alone was 25K.  We would love to join Re-Tree again for their Spring 2010 planting; however, they need more funding to purchase more trees for everyone to plant.  Their goal is 30,000 trees and so far volunteers have planted a total of 11,000.  The Buffalo News is campaigning with Re-Tree to help raise funds.  If you or someone you know would like to contribute to Re-Tree’s fund raiser and reserve a tree in someone’s name, please click on the link.  The link will take you to a secure paypal page.  $30 gets you a tree for your Gramma Majorie or your Uncle Larry or your bff, Cookie.

We hope to see you again to plant with you next Spring!