Five days a week at the Needham Swap Shop, located at the town dump (formally known as the Recycling and Transfer Station), people drop off items they no longer want or need at a large, nondescript shed to the left of the trash bins. And sometimes, within minutes, someone else sees that same item, picks it up and excitedly brings it home. Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder when it comes to Swap Shop values.
“I’ve taken in stuff that other people don’t even know what it is … like compost bins,” said volunteer coordinator Brenda Metzler, “and then I’m out there selling it.” She likes to find homes for items that can be reused, including coffee pots, children’s toys, books and CDs, picture frames and athletic equipment. There are even gently used bicycles for the taking and everything is free.
There’s always a little buzz and anticipation around the Swap Shop when people come to browse. What will they find today? Last Saturday was no exception as curious shoppers combed through boxes, shelves and tables filled with both the most unusual and the most mundane used treasures.
Volunteer Carol Crossen has worked at the Swap Shop for more than five years. “So many incredible things come in: brand new; really old things. I myself have gotten used hockey equipment for my granddaughter, American Girl dolls, dishes. … I think ‘Oh, my son would like that’ … or ‘my daughter would like that.’ People drop off incredible stuff: KitchenAid mixer, expensive Pottery Barn items.”
Shopper Albert Shapiro was there to drop something off. “I hate to throw things away if they can be used,” he said. And he said he does, on occasion, take stuffed animals that aren’t really usable any more so that his dogs can play with them.
Shapiro said he found a Flexible Flyer sled way back when the Swap Shop was just a place to drop off junk. That was before the RTS started using the pay-per-throw program that required buying yellow bags for trash and paying extra to get rid of everything that wasn’t recyclable. Metzler suspects some people just didn’t want to buy the bags, so they tossed stuff into one of the empty bays. The town was paying thousands of dollars per year to throw the stuff away.
“The area was a mess,” said Metzler, and you couldn’t really find anything in the heaps of stuff people left behind. Credit Metzler with coming up with a plan in late 2010 to organize the swap shop and find volunteers to keep it going. “There was absolutely the prospect of closing unless they could get someone to staff and supervise it.”
Now, the Swap Shop runs like a well-oiled machine thanks to Metzler, her volunteers and the RTS staff under Superintendent Matthew DeMarrais. A recent survey of the RTS done by a national engineering company found the Swap Shop is widely used and appreciated by town residents.
There are guidelines about what can and cannot be donated, and there are rules prohibiting people from taking too many items. Also, people are asked to limit their shopping to 20 minutes.
And in those 20 minutes, incredible things can be found, said Metzler. A 14-year-old girl and her grandmother once discovered a set of china worth about $600. Metzler said beautiful crystal pieces come in. She found a little silver baby spoon from Tiffany’s. And they’ve even had usable pieces of equipment, such as a snowblower that would normally sell for hundreds of dollars.
But, said Metzler, it’s not just about the goodies that can be found at the Swap Shop. It’s also about the social interaction between neighbors that takes place. “There may be people who come by here because it may be their only opportunity to interact with someone during the day,” she said. “It’s a great feeling … makes us be more neighborly and engage with other parts of the community we might not know.”
Credit Metzler for helping create the magic over the past 15 years. “My spirit is a little indomitable,” she said. “So is the allure and endurance of the Swap Shop.”
Full disclosure: The reporter is a relatively new but enthusiastic fan of the Swap Shop. Her finds include a beginner’s bike for her granddaughter, a tea kettle for her daughter’s new apartment and, best of all, a realistic but fake human arm that she had a blast hiding around the house at Halloween.
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