Who We Are
Mission
As a creative textile reuse nonprofit, our mission is to grow a culture of creative textile reuse through education, entrepreneurial opportunities, and job training. Namely, by keeping textiles out of the landfill through our thrift store and mending & repair workshops. Working together to embolden our community to find creative uses for undesirable or deteriorated items. With the help of our dedicated employees and robust volunteer network, we’re able to process and sort through the many donations we receive each day to keep our community stocked and material lifecycles in motion. Thanks to the constant stream of community donations we receive and our subsequent diversion work, we are able to provide affordable access to materials to artists and those wanting to learn a new skill.
Mission Tenets
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Ragfinery partners with schools and social service agencies to provide on-the-job training for low-income and disadvantaged residents in need of work experience and work references.
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Ragfinery promotes a sustainable local economy by tapping the waste stream to generate new economic activity. By extending the life of existing products, we save energy and reduce the need to consume virgin raw materials. We also keep local dollars circulating in the community.
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Ragfinery creates new jobs in the local economy by creating new jobs, hiring worker trainees, and building the capacity of its business partners in the reuse sector.
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Ragfinery diverts unwanted materials from the waste stream and encourages reuse over consumption of products made with virgin materials. We reclaim items donated by residents who can receive a federal tax deduction for their donation.
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Ragfinery provides low-income residents with an opportunity to plan, participate in, and direct a community-owned enterprise as worker trainees, employees, and members of the board of directors.
Our History
Ragfinery opened in the April of 2014, sprouting up as the second jobs from waste program under the Reuse Works umbrella. The hope was to find ways to recycle donated textiles.
Our first year was focused on basic organization in the shop and putting structure in place. Alongside the development of our internal operations we instigated reuse challenges. “The Bus Pants Challenge,” utilizing a ton (literally) of used grey uniform pants from the Whatcom Transit Alliance as fodder for creative projects of all kinds, and our first runway spurred by a donation of 40 wedding dresses, prompting each participant was given a wedding dress to take home and create something they could wear, drag or carry down the runway.
We made some initial connections with Eileen Fisher that ultimately led us to develop a multi-year partnership. Thanks to Eileen, we’ve received hundreds of boxes over the years filled with garment donations. From these we’ve offered new Eileen pieces at Ragfinery prices, provided the unsellable chop to our community in pursuit of creating their own creative upcycled pieces.
Our volunteers have been our foundation from the start. Those who were there at the beginning might remember the manager role being covered by a different volunteer everyday! Over time, we solidified our volunteer program to be one built on our mission. With access and waste diversion as goalposts, our amazing volunteers are trained to sort and identify the thousands of pounds of donations we receive from our generous community each month.
As we grew we also continued to bolster our job training program. Working with Opportunity Council, Northwest Youth Services, amongst other local social services agencies to connect with people interested in gaining basic job skills through learning various tasks around the shop. With the ultimate goal of individuals being hired into the local economy. We continued to connect with the broader in communities in other creative ways. From collecting used t-shirts and grain bags from various Bellingham breweries to stock their online retail, to creating designer pillows for the show room of local Samuels Furniture.
Becoming more established, Ragfinery began to offer mending & education services, teaching people to mend their own clothes. Developing a ‘Sewing Boot Camp’ to offer sewing classes to the public, as well as incorporating sewing into our training program. Utilizing creativity and inspiration in our efforts to educate people in our community about the importance of creating with reused textiles. In collaboration with our training program, this gave our trainees a useful skill they could take forward no matter what they went.
Where We Are Today
After 10 years of operation, at the year-end of 2024, our retail & workshop space suffered a devastating fire that resulted in a year-long closure. Throughout that time, we were a bare-bones operation, with most of our employees on unemployment, our central way of staying engaged with our community was through monthly mending events. With the help of a talented group of volunteers, we mended garments in community residential housing spaces like Lydia Place, the YWCA, and Opportunity Council, as well as out in the community at the Bellingham Farmer’s Market and the Bellingham Public Library.
Present day, after a long and unprecedented year, we are reopened in our new retail space, so excited to welcome back our amazingly supportive community. We’ve bounced back and are continuing to grow and determine what’s next and as we collectively navigate the unprecedented times that are impacting life here at home and away. With community and craft only expanding in importance by the day, we thank you all - those who’ve supported us from the beginning and those who are finding us now - for providing us the platform to cultivate community through sharing accountability and our treasures.
