Just before 10 a.m, a small crowd of customers were gathered outside the Free Market in the Grayson County town of Independence, waiting for the doors to open. They came to shop, but they wouldn’t be spending any money. Everything at the Free Market is, well, free.
“We’re like a rescue shelter for your stuff,” said organizer Kathy Cole. “If you no longer love it, we’ll find somebody that does. If you’ve decided you don’t need your bread maker, somebody out there wishes they could afford one. … [I want] people to think about what to do with their stuff and who else needs this before throwing it away. “
The Free Market in Independence is part of a “freecycling” movement has been around for over twenty years. People can donate usable goods, and through a community network of customers, churches, and social services, the Free Market arranges for unwanted items to be “rehomed.” The freecycling system is a win-win-win scenario: Householders avoid clutter, consumers find needed items at no cost, and pressure on landfill resources is reduced.
Two worldwide organizations drive the effort: freecycle.org, which has more than 11 million members, and buynothing.org, claiming over seven million members. Both are grassroots, website-based organizations relying on local leaders to build a freecycling community. Web pages are published in local areas, where users post free items for anyone willing to come get them. Of course, craigslist.org offers a free section focused on Virginia localities, and Facebook boasts more than 100 Virginia-based “freecycling” groups.
The Independence Free Market offers two things you can’t get from a website: a physical hub (storefront) and community (in-person connections). Having a storefront boosts contributions. Donors don’t have the headaches of online trading: taking and uploading pictures, writing descriptions, returning messages and negotiating pickups. They drop off their donations and they’re done. Patrons, too, benefit from a one-stop shopping hub.
When the Free Market’s doors opened at 10, and the waiting crowd entered, the scene was reminiscent of a gathering of friends. Customers greeted each other warmly, and conversations were lively. Free Market volunteers Hannah Gill, Linda Battjes, Rob Meinecke and Kathy Cole greeted folks as they entered the store.
It was Thursday, which was weighing day. Everything that went out the door — from paper goods to small appliances — got weighed. Not because such tracking is required but because Cole wanted to ensure that Free Market’s resources are used effectively. “We track how many people come through the door for any reason,” she sad. “How many people brought stuff to donate? How many people left taking something? And how much is in the donation box at the end of the day? That’s my total stats. But I can graph that and [see] that all those things have gone up over the years. More people come, more people bring things, and more people take things.”
Meinecke, a retired veterinarian and regular volunteer, was responsible for weighing that day. “We weigh whatever goes out,” he said. “We track how much we’re keeping out of the landfill. … I’ve extrapolated those numbers, and in the past year, the Free Market has kept over 35 tons out of the landfill.” That’s about the weight of five adult elephants, a firetruck or a fully loaded charter bus. For context, a toaster weighs about 2 pounds.
Despite the Free Market’s efforts to keep goods out of the dump, not everything donated is suitable for rehoming. Some goods aren’t inventoried, and others may be useless or unsafe. The Free Market partners with Alleghany Cares and Books’n’Friends, both in Sparta, North Carolina, and Willing Partners in Galax to distribute uninventoried goods in usable condition. Despite efforts to keep goods out of the dump, Cole admits they still take two to four garbage bags a week to Grayson County dumpsters, which are dumped at the regional landfill in Carroll County.
The conviviality among Free Market’s volunteer staff is apparent. They joke about half-price days and after-Christmas discounts. The volunteers constantly threaten to unionize, so Cole offers to double their salaries or dock their pay if they make a silly mistake. Of course, since no one gets paid and everything is free, it’s all in jest.
“This is an absolutely beautiful place,” said Gill. “I would work seven days if I could, I so 100% believe in this program. Some people have nothing and are starting over, and we help them with kitchenware and linens through our housewares outreach. They are grateful for the help, and sometimes they just cry; we cry together. My favorite part is at Christmas when I get to take the kids shopping for their parents or brother or sister. That is an absolutely amazing feeling.”
How can a business afford to do all of this for free? Surely there are expenses? Who pays the rent, the utilities, the taxes? Cole explains: “We are an initiative of Grayson Landcare, which is a nonprofit in the county that’s been around for 17 years now. That also makes it very easy for me. They pay the bills, deposit our donations, they do the taxes. So, I didn’t have to make our own nonprofit, which saved a lot of headaches. I can focus on serving our customers.”
The genesis of the Free Market is a lesson in perseverance. “The building was originally a grocery store,” Cole said. “In 1992, it was bought by an HVAC operator who added the warehouse. He died rather tragically, and his son and daughter were unable to sell the building. It was just a burden on them. I talked to them for a few months about using their building for the Free Market project. When we talked to Grayson County, we found a program called the Community Incentive Grant that will rebate property taxes if you use [the property] for community purposes. So, the owners get their county taxes back every year. We have to apply for that. So our rent equals their county taxes, which in the first year was $105. Now, it’s up to about $150 for the year. We’re maintaining the building, upgrading it, fixing it up, cleaning it up. So, when they want to sell this, it’ll be worth a lot more than it was when they took it over.”
The transformation of the property has been remarkable. When the daughter returned and saw it, she remarked, “This place used to have ghosts in it. You’ve made it a happy place again.” She is thrilled with the revamping.
What does the future hold for the Free Market? “What we want is where the amount of stuff coming in equals the amount going out,” Cole said. “We have enough volunteers right now to expand our hours (and) I think that might result in new sales.” For now, though, Cole has no plans to extend the hours. If they did, she said, they would be faced with empty shelves.
When you’re ready to declutter, visit the Free Market 10 am. to 2 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays at 1173 N. Independence Ave., Independence. The shop takes a variety of usable goods, but check its website for specifics: graysonlandcare.org/our-work/freemarket. The phone number is 276-266-1303, or visit on Facebook at Facebook.com/LandCareFreeMarket.
