UpCycle Creative Reuse Center

UpCycle imagines a community where everyone has the opportunity to experience the fun and benefits of art exploration, and works collectively to reduce waste and repurpose unwanted materials. With your support we:

• Provide rich creative reuse experiences to thousands of children and adults.
• Divert the equivalent of 50 truckloads annually of reusable materials annually from the waste stream.
• Support over 250 local teachers to integrate diverse, creative materials in classrooms.

We invite you to join us in this important community initiative.

UpCycle is THE exchange place for creative materials,
inspiration, and ideas in Alexandria. We connect creativity and conservation by
providing a resource center for reuse materials and a creative making space for
the community. At UpCycle, we rethink the traditional notion of waste by
collecting cast-offs from our community to serve as creative materials.

Thanks to our community and staff, UpCycle has grown
immensely in the last year. Here is how your investment in UpCycle has made an
impact:

• This
  past year, thanks to your donations and our staff and volunteers, UpCycle
  was able to receive our most donations ever diverting over 50,500 pounds
  of materials from the waste stream. This is a 32% increase year-over-year
  increase on donation intake. Your continued partnership helps us
  achieve environmental sustainability while promoting creative exploration
  in our community through reuse.

• We
  were thrilled to add an extra day to our operating hours to support all of
  your upcycling needs. As of March 2024, UpCycle is open five days
  a week for all of your creative reuse needs and to accept
  donations.

• 
  Attendance
  at our weekly Tinker Time sessions continues to grow. In 2024,
  there was a 38% increase in events held resulting in a 43% increase in
  participants year-over-year. Parents share with us that they love Tinker
  Time because they witness the increased autonomy in their children. We are
  grateful to be able to provide the space and resources to foster this
  growth. Many thanks to our corporate sponsors Shirlington Pediatric
  Dentistry and Erkiletian for making Tinker Time free to our community

• In
  2024, our adult workshop offerings more than tripled to 25
  unique offerings and participation grew 54%. We love exploring
  creative reuse with you and bringing the community together to learn a new art
  form.

• UpCycle
  is trending! Our materials center produced a 30% increase year-over-year in sales from over 4,300 customers.  Thanks to our community for supporting us with record donations to salvage materials from the waste stream for creative reuse.
  

Our goal for Spring2ACTion 2025 is to raise $10,000 to
enable us to continue to support our community's growing needs for creative
reuse. This includes expanding our offerings and accessibility of
creative exploration and expression within the Alexandria community.

We’re excited at how much UpCycle continues to grow. We look
forward to your continued support and engagement to continue to strengthen
reuse and creativity in Alexandria and beyond!

See what our community says about UpCycle Creative Reuse
Center:

"I love that you are so accepting of a broad range of materials, which only aids in expression of creativity."

"This is the best art camp. The instructors are kind and caring and quickly build trust with the campers. They planned fun and engaging activities and let the kids shine in their creativity. I also love that the supplies aren’t brand new. It helps give things new life and teaches children about how to value our world. Thank you! We will be signing up again next summer."

"UpCycle delivered a wonderful team-building exercise for our school for staff through an interactive, creative experience. The experience was fun, impactful, and produced beautiful art to decorate our school!"

"I liked trying something totally new for the first time in this class. Fun and easy program that provides all of the instructions and materials you need to create your own block printing.  So many possibilities for designs. Love your variety of classes, keep it up!"