Today we’d like to introduce you to Morgan Kraybill Gross.
Hi Morgan Kraybill, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I, Morgan (Kraybill) Gross, am a Harrisonburg native, a licensed clinical social worker by profession and newly an entrepreneur. My social work career has included work in a community drop in center, soup kitchen and homeless shelter, community organizing with older adults, anti-human trafficking hotline, hospital inpatient psychiatric work, emergency room mental health evaluations, managing a perinatal mental health program in DC and most recently working at the Harrisonburg Community Health Center, before transitioning to part time telehealth work. Leaving full time work as a mental health therapist at the local community health center in 2021, after the birth of my 2nd child, allowed the space for a tiny seed of an idea that had been percolating since 2014 to come to life. This was to bring a creative reuse center to my hometown! My ongoing work as therapist and the founding of Valley Creative Reuse both share the goal of creating healthier individuals and communities.
But back to 2014, when the idea of launching a creative reuse center in my hometown was first said aloud, “if no one else starts a creative reuse center in Harrisonburg, maybe I’ll be crazy enough to give it a try”. Fast forward 9 years, and November 2023, Valley Creative Reuse opened its doors!
I first learned about the creative reuse model in 2009, when I was living off $50/month of discretionary funds, during a year of Americorps voluntary service in Pittsburgh, PA. When I walked into the small room with floor to ceiling art & craft supplies, just one room in a Habitat Restore type place that was the early stage of Pittsburgh’s first creative reuse center (Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse), my brain lit up. I could spend less than $10 and walk out with a bag filled with so much creative potential. As a new, young social worker, just out of college in 2009, working in a community agency, I quickly began to realize the importance of self care, and crafting was the perfect way to do this. The creative reuse center sustained my emotional wellness that year!
When I moved to DC for social work graduate school in 2012, I was sad to leave the PGH creative reuse store behind, but was beyond thrilled when I discovered that DC had a store just like it, SCRAP DC, and it was just across the train tracks from my new grad school. It was in 2012, when I discovered SCRAP DC, that I realized creative reuse was a concept, a model, not just a one off gem. And I realized I’d been doing creative reuse since I was young, making dollhouses out of boxes, adding furniture and accessories to miniature abodes, using toothpicks, lids, and other upcycled items.
I’ve always been thrifty and creative and in my professional identify as a mental health therapist, I understand the many mental health benefits of creativity, so maybe it isn’t so surprising that this is where I am, running a creative reuse center in my hometown! It’s truly a labor of love, focused on sustainability, creativity, community, accessibility & joy.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
What to do with the items that aren’t the best fit for us (as we learn & grow), but can ideally be diverted from the landfill. We have an internal rolodex of who takes what in the community, ie the local tinker space at the Children’s Museum can take small, broken electronics. Finding the right home for things takes a lot of time & effort.
Boxes of donations that are filled with small, random items, that are low value items and time consuming to sort. There is always a question of “how much time is it worth spending on sorting this?” The more time we spend, the more the item(s) cost us staff time wise, and our goal is to keep prices affordable.
Unpredictable nature of receiving community donations of lightly used art & craft supplies. We never know what will come in our door and it constantly keeps us on our toes with sorting, organizing, merchandising. It’s also a part of the fun!
We operate with a narrow financial margin. The staff time spent organizing the donated art & craft materials is significant in comparison with the resale price. In addition to diverting art materials from the landfill, one of our values is to make art & craft supplies more affordable and accessible, thus this margin is part of the nature of this labor of love.
As you know, we’re big fans of Valley Creative Reuse. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Valley Creative Reuse (VCR), established November 2023, an art & craft supplies thrift store and creative reuse center in Harrisonburg, is the 8th of its type in Virginia, and now one of 15 creative reuse centers across Virginia, and one of dozens more across the United States. The creative reuse center is fueled by community donations of lightly used, no longer needed art & craft supplies and materials, as well as business surplus/waste that can be utilized for creative purposes. VCR serves as a resource to those seeking to rehome no longer needed art & craft supplies, reducing landfill waste, and gives the community an opportunity to recirculate usable materials back into the community supporting low cost art supplies. VCR serves as an alternative to shopping at a big box store, where the cost of art and craft supplies may be prohibitive to some.
VCR is more than just a thrift store, as it offers a space for creating in community, and seeks to spark creativity, community, accessibility, sustainability and joy through its physical brick and mortar presence in the community as well as through community collaborations and partnerships.
Never in a million years did I anticipate that I’d be running a small business, wearing all the hats, from paying sales tax to the state, managing social media, taking the trash out, sorting through boxes of sewing notions. But here we are. Most days it is a fun challenge and puzzle of how and what to prioritize– sort the next box of donations, follow up with a potential workshop instructor, make a creative post for social media. I’ve loved being able to contribute to my community through launching a creative reuse center in my hometown of Harrisonburg, VA.
As Founder/Owner/Manager, I get to do a little of everything and I am eternally grateful to have a hardworking, reliable, creative and fun team of staff to share the work load with. And a supportive community, bringing us donations of art & craft supplies daily, and making purchases of second hand art materials!
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
This has been such a community effort, from the entrepreneurial class offered by Harrisonburg City’s Economic Development program, to the community of local entrepreneurs cheering us on, to friends & family, to the small but very mighty team of staff, and the broader network of creative reuse centers offering inspiration, consultation & more.
Pricing:
- Fill-a-bag pricing system (4 brown bag sizes, ranging from $8-$30)
- Fill-a-bottle for beads & jewelry ($2 for plastic beads/jewelry, $3 for other types)
- Some items are individually priced with a brown tag (when we price, we work hard to price no more than 30-50% of new retail value)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.valleycreativereuse.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valleycreativereuse/?hl=enf
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091794472684
- Other: https://valleycreativereuse.substack.com/
