Our Article in the Oregonian

Portland Free Store uses excess to fill need

By Special to The Oregonian

November 05, 2009, 3:53AM

Anne Laufe/Special to The OregonianOwner Ben Aubin folds clothes inside the Portland Free Store. Items are donated by individuals or collected from various free boxes throughout the city.
That secondhand copy of “Twilight”? No charge. That sassy pair of red slingbacks? Nada. And that warm winter jacket with hood? Yep, absolutely free.

Welcome to the Portland Free Store, located in an old school bus parked at the corner of Southeast Clay and 11th Avenue, just south of Hawthorne. The brainchild of 24-year-old Ben Aubin, the Free Store houses items donated by individuals or gleaned from various free boxes located throughout the city (always with a “thank you” note from the Free Store left in return).

In addition to perusing the goods on display in the bus, potential customers can fill out a “wish list” on the Free Store Web site. Aubin uses the wish lists to create a continually updated “wanted” list, so that people with items to donate know exactly what others are looking for. He hopes to eventually phase out the physical store and make the entire business Internet-based.

And in true Portland fashion, bicycle messengers pick up and deliver most of the items.

Chelle Yelvington, who lives in Northeast, is one of the Free Store’s satisfied customers. Homeless for two years, Yelvington recently rented a room in a house and was looking for an air mattress to sleep on. She filled out a wish list, and two queen-size air mattresses were delivered to her new home the next day.

“My belief in humanity is restored,” Yelvington says. “I think it’s a great thing to do for Portland while we’re suffering this economic turmoil.”

According to Aubin, helping those in need is just one of the many goals of his business.

“We are recycling things which otherwise would have been thrown away,” he says, “By giving things away free, we’re able to help people who can’t afford anything, and we’re helping those who can afford things invest their money elsewhere. And we’re also creating jobs. Each time we get an item for the wish list, we give a job to a bike messenger.”

Bike messengers currently work for tips only, but Aubin hopes to pay them a living wage before long. His two modest revenue streams are local businesses that advertise on fliers left at drop-offs and pickups, and Rainmakers, sponsors who pay $10 a month to support his mission.

Tom Daly, an old friend of Aubin’s and one such sponsor, says, “Due to the sheer amount of excess in our culture, I think it’s possible for someone to provide almost everything you need for free.”

–Anne Laufe

Video Interview with the Motorhome Diaries

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v5W75duheM&feature=player_embedded

Our Short Piece on Fox News

http://www.kptv.com/video/21344316/index.html

Our Artcicle in PSU’s Newspaper the Daily Vanguard

http://www.dailyvanguard.com/free-stuff-for-everybody-1.1998706

Free stuff for everybody!

How one Portlander is trying to bring free fare to all

By Bianca Blankenship

Vanguard staff

Adam Wickham/Portland State Vanguard

Free Store Grand Opening
SE 11th and Clay
Sat, Oct. 17, 7-11 p.m.
Free
21+
www.freestoreportland.com

If you’ve ever peered into one of the many boxes of free stuff on the sidewalks in Portland, you might know that they are often gold mines. Anything from iPods to cashmere sweaters can be found in these gloriously free boxes of stuff. But who has time to scout the streets for such goods? Ben Aubin, that’s who. He’ll do it for you and it’s all free.

Aubin owns and operates the Free Store, which has been open for just over a month. The store is an old school bus decorated in painted designs by local artist Heidi Elise Wirz. Inside the bus is a constantly rotating array of items that you might find at a yard sale: clothes, records, cookware and even sewing machines.

Aubin and his team of bike messengers gather free stuff from around the city and give it away at the store. Yes, give it away. As the name implies, everything is free at the Free Store.

“I was inspired by the free culture that was here in Portland,” says Aubin. “I’d also never been to a place that rained as much as Portland does.”

Determined to save free boxes from the wet weather and to bring the joy of free stuff to others, Aubin gathered a team of bike messengers to pick up Portland’s free fare and bring it to the store, which is open five days a week. Additionally, he fulfills wish lists. Anyone can fill out a wish list, in person or on the Free Store’s Web site, listing any items that they need, from disco balls to bike fenders.

In tough economic times, everyone can appreciate a little charity. Yet, the concept of free stuff has been hard for most customers to grasp. They are almost bashful to return to the store, assuming that some sort of barter is necessary.

“For me, it’s about expansion and outreach,” Aubin said. “We need to change our mentality. Everybody is so used to thinking from a place of scarcity…someone has to be coming from a mental place of abundance.”

This Saturday is the store’s grand opening celebration. In addition to loads of free stuff available, there will be booze and live music. Ninkasi and MacTarnahan’s are co-sponsoring the event, along with four kegs of beer, and DJ D.A.N., DJ Deena Bee and a special guest will be providing tunes.

While this is Portland’s first free store, the idea is not new. It originated in San Francisco in the 1960s and the idea has since been alive but scarce. There are free stores in cities such as New York, Baltimore and Des Moines, though the stores are often geared toward a low income or at-need population, rather than for anyone.

Aubin’s Free Store is also unique because it mixes the free culture and bike culture that are central to Portland. Bike messengers who work for tips and deliver wish list items to your doorstep support the business. It also fills Portland’s popular niche of sustainability, reminding you that every free box nabbed is one less box of stuff in a landfill.

Our Live Interview on News Channel 8, KGW:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbxpaOIdbUc

Our BikePortland.org Article:

Portland’s first Free Store works its magic by bike
Posted by Elly Blue on October 2nd, 2009 at 10:51 am

The Portland Free Store at SE 11th & Clay
(Photos © Elly Blue)

There’s yet another new bike-based business in town — the difference is that at this store, everything is free.

The Portland Free Store is, according to its website, “basically a second-hand store, except that everything is free.” People can drop off donations at the recommissioned school bus that houses the store at SE 11th and Clay during its open hours — currently 11am – 7pm, Monday to Friday — or a bike messenger will come and do a pick up.

Free Store owner Ben Aubin sorting through a recent wave of donations.

Customers can make a visit to the bus, or fill out an online wish-list and have items delivered by bike as they come in.

Last week I caught up with owner Ben Aubin as he was sorting through the leftovers of the well-attended Free Box Bazaar he had thrown the day before. Aubin has a ton of energy and is working full time to make a dozen things happen at once, from fundraisers to opening satellite locations (he hopes to find donated spaces in all five quadrants) to finding local artists to redesign the outside of the bus each month.

“Yesterday we gave away a bicycle,” Aubin told me. A week ago, a woman walked away with a laptop and a new purse. “Right now we have a lot of shoes, if you need those.”

The store is accepts donations of “consignment quality” goods, and can’t handle anything too bulky yet, though hopefully with new warehouse space across town they’ll be able to start taking furniture and other large items.

Free Store courier Shonn

Though all items are free, Aubin is working to make the store economically sustainable. He has been able to raise enough money to hire a salesperson. A handful of couriers work for tips; Aubin wants to be able to start paying them, partly by selling ad space on a flyer they leave with every pick up and drop off, and partly by seeking sponsors to pledge a small sum per month to help keep a favorite courier in business.

All donations are entered into a database and matched against customer wishlists. Another program finds free items posted to Craigslist and Freecycle, and Aubin dispatches couriers to pick them up. The goal, he says, is eventually to dispense with the school bus storefront altogether and work entirely peer to peer.

The Portland Free Store is one of four currently operating in the United States not run by a religious organization. Aubin says the shop draws inspiration from the Really Really Free Market movement.

www.bikeportland.org