CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte nonprofit is making an impact in the Queen City, bringing new life to used art supplies to bring affordable materials to creatives while reducing what would otherwise go to the landfill.
Rachel Busby, a board member and volunteer with Upcycle Arts, joined the team about two years ago when she met the founder Angela Kollmer.
"She had this vision of creating a retail store that artists could come and shop and buy supplies for a discount," Busby said.
Upcycle Arts said it is the first creative reuse center of its kind in Charlotte, though there are similar centers in other cities.
Upcycle Arts started with a storage unit in 2020 and hosted pop-up workshops across the city. In March 2024, Upcycle Arts moved to east Charlotte near Commonwealth Park.
It gets donations from the public and companies alike, and the nonprofit keeps track of what it's repurposing each month by weight. Upcycle Arts takes a wide variety of gently used art supplies and bulk items, though there is a list online of items that aren't accepted.
In June alone, Upcycle Arts said it diverted 4,051 pounds of art supplies from going to a landfill. That's a small piece of the pie compared to what Upcycle Arts has done since the organization debuted in August 2020.
"Oh my gosh, we have kept over 100,000 pounds of materials out of the landfill since Upcycle has been around," Busby said. "It's unbelievable how inspiring other artists are about reusing supplies."
Busby said it's important to the nonprofit to encourage people to not waste old materials.
"Well, I think our landfills are gonna get very full if we don't do something like that," she said. "And why not give your brain some challenges and reinvent things? I think that's part of art, I think that's how we can be creative. I think it just makes your mind grow a little bit."
Sarah Cleven is a 16-year-old who loves making earrings from scratch and is part an upcycling club at school. She's volunteered at Upcycle Arts twice now and found the sheer range of things donated to be inspiring.
"It's really cool, and like, upcycling is cool," Cleven said. "There's crafts you wouldn't even think about doing until you see like the stuff."
With the big move to a brick-and-mortar store, the team tried to live out the nonprofit's mission of repurposing items in the store itself, by repurposing used items from other businesses and people.
"It's been exciting to give it new life and to tell the story to constantly ... show somebody something new in our store that we did, but it's not new -- it's just new to us," Busby said.
As part of the new location, Upcycle Arts is able to host more events and get the community involved -- including weekly volunteer days on Sundays and Wednesdays, and senior craft days each Thursday.
Busby said those stories are also evident when looking through supply donations each week.
"The donations we get sent, when we're going through them, you can tell a person's life," Busby said.
Upcycle Arts is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. every Thursday through Sunday.
Contact Emma Korynta at ekorynta@wcnc.com and follow her on Instagram and X .