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Mid-June 2013
Forklift Fan-Mail
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CONTACT US:
301-985-5180
STORE HOURS:
Closed Mondays
Open Tues 12-6
Wed, Thurs, & Fri 10-6
Sat & Sun 9-6
(Please drop off donations
before 5:30pm)
HOW TO:
get here
donate materials
donate money
share project photos
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We've got a huge party in store for you this weekend!
Our Half-Birthday Party is
THIS SATURDAY
June 15th!!
Do you know what that means?
- HALF-OFF discounts throughout the store!
- LIVE MUSIC!
- DIY Workshops!
- Creative activities for the whole family!
What better time to bring some friends on over to check out the fun & funky Forklift?!
Read on for all the details.
Subscribe to our social media for regular updates & to get the most up-to-date info!
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Are you coming to Community Forklift'
Half-Birthday Party?
THIS Saturday,
June 15, 2013
Community Forklift is turning 7 � years old, and we'll be celebrating with a half-birthday party. Join us for half-price special sales, live music, and DIY workshops!
5 Live Bands!
Enjoy our 1st annual local music festival - show off your moves on the dance floor, or bring a lawn chair to relax and enjoy good tunes!
 11:00-12:00:Wild Anacostias
(New Orleans jazz band)
2:00-3:00: Julie Barnet (Latin American folk)
 3:30-4:30:M.R. Jam Band (classic rock/R&B)
5 Free Workshops!
Get inspired to complete your half-finished projects!
9:30-10:30:
Handtools 101 -
presented by Mr Fix-it
Mr Fix-it will be giving hands-on demonstrations to show you how to use a variety of basic handtools. Find a funky old tool in our 50% off tool sale? Bring it over to the Resource Room and ask the expert!
 11:00-12:00: Transforming Food into Art:
A Watermelon Carving Demonstration -
You can't have a summer party without watermelons! Oswald Fernandes, a professional chef and Kitchen Artist, will lead a demonstration of traditional fruit carving techniques. Learn how to add a touch of beauty & elegance with his freestyle carving masterpieces that are as unique as you.
 12:30-1:30:
Introduction to Backyard Chicken Coop Design -
presented by Ryan Cooper
Ryan will cover the basics of what to consider as you plan and build housing for a backyard chicken flock. We will cover issues such as coop size and dimensions, predator protection, insulation and ventilation, ease of cleaning, and much more.
 2:00-3:00: Rain Barrel Installation -
It's rain barrel season! Ben Hackett will discuss residential rainwater management, and go over the basics of why and how to install rain barrels. He'll demonstrate with CF's new model rain barrel, installed courtesy of District Garden
3:30-4  :30:
How to restore an antique table - presented by Charles Thomas of Millinium Properties
Charles Thomas will be talking about the antique furniture restoration process and demonstrating techniques on an antique table he has restored.
Raffles!
One free raffle ticket to all party-goers! Buy more tickets to increase your chances. Winners will be called every hour between bands.
Food!
  DC's first and only traveling culinary carnival, the Merlindian food truck will be serving up its delightments in our courtyard from 11am-3pm. The fojol bros. serve delicious and healthy meals with no preservatives, offering both vegetarian and meat dishes. The fojol bros. go the extra mile for our planet by serving their food with certified biodegradable & compostable utensils, and delivering used eating materials to recycling and composting facilities.
Cake Contest! 
Bring your best half-themed birthday cake by 11am to be entered into the contest. Cakes will be judged by Forklift Fans based on their visual appearance and how well they represent the "half-birthday" theme. Gift certificates will be awarded to the bakers with the most votes! We'll serve the cakes as soon as the winners are announced, at noon.
 T-shirt Design Contest!
You'll be voting on the top 5 favorite t-shirt designs from our recent contest -- which will be #1?
Creative Activities for All Ages!
 Mike McMullin orchestrates
a process whereby participants in gathered groups are asked to collaborate in an expressive activity capturing some of the feelings of the moment, using paint to get their message out, to record the energy that brings them together. Help us create a community painting to decorate our Reuse Resource Room!
Kids' Corner!
 SCRAP-DC is co-sponsoring a craft corner where Forklift Fans and their children can engage in creating fun musical instruments from recycled materials. Face painting! Balloon animals! Crafts!
Half-Price Specials,
ONLY on June 15th!
 Only during our party, take 50% off the marked price on most appliances. (Sale does not include items with missing or damaged price tags, items from our ALCO consignment partner, or select specialty items.)
Take 50% off Tools! Forklift Power and Hand Tools are half off. (Sale does not include hardware, items from our consignment partners, or select specialty items.)
Take 50% off any piece of Granite & Marble Countertop. (Sale does not include sink vanities, kitchen cabinet sets, stone tile, other stone, or select specialty items.)
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Frager's Hardware
Many of you have heard about the fire last week at Frager's Hardware Store on Capitol Hill. A true old-fashioned hardware store, it is a beloved institution that has been locally owned and operated since 1920.
All that's left is a charred shell. The good news is that everyone got out of the building safely, the owners did have insurance, and they are planning to rebuild! They have also set up a temporary outdoor garden shop at Eastern Market. The sad news is that many of their friendly, knowledgeable employees have lost their place of work until the store is rebuilt.
 Tom Bridge said it best on the We Love DC blog, " This city is full of many beautiful, incredible places like Frager's, places that can't easily be replaced or rebuilt, that are unique to our place and our time, special threads that hold together neighborhoods and communities. Our communities need places like Frager's the same way they need schools and fire stations and hospitals. They're just not the same without them." We are working with other locally-owned hardware retailers in the DC area to figure out how to help the Frager's employees, and we'll keep you posted. In the meantime, you can help out by contributing to
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Extremely Low Impact: Forklift Sinks More Carbon Than It Spews
By Elizabeth McGowan
Regular customers are fully aware that Community Forklift sells sinks -and plenty of them. But they likely don't know that the nonprofit is actually a sizeable carbon sink itself because of its eco-friendly business model.
Capturing such a volume of heat-trapping gases means the Forklift is keeping significantly more air pollutants out of the atmosphere than it adds. And that relatively tiny carbon footprint is a welcome balm to a warming planet where carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are so abundant that the entire world's climate is being altered.
And why else does the Forklift's footprint matter? Well, in a nutshell, it's solid, on-the-ground validation that keeping building materials out of landfills and incinerators isn't just mushy, feel-good chatter. Instead, it's irrefutable evidence that recycling at every level is environmentally and economically sound.
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Bradley Guy
Courtesy: The Catholic University of America
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Bradley Guy, who has examined most every aspect of building deconstruction and reuse since the mid-1990s, is the brave soul who relished delving into the laborious, spreadsheet-heavy research at the Forklift in 2011. By 2012, he and a graduate student turned the numbers they collected into a preliminary study with the title, "Lifecycle Greenhouse Gas Assessment of Building Materials Reuse Services." That academic mouthful merely means they measured the Forklift's overall carbon impact.
Guy is an assistant professor at The Catholic University of America's School of Architecture and Planning, as well as an associate director for the university's Center for Building Stewardship.
After crunching his data, Guy found that on an annual basis the Forklift prevented the emissions of the equivalent of 360 metric tons of carbon dioxide. That sounds impressive but it is perhaps more meaningful when applied practically. Here's how those 360 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent translates: It's the same as keeping 242 passenger vehicles off the road for a year. It's also how much carbon dioxide is emitted annually by a traditional power plant providing electricity to 175 homes. Or put another way, it's the amount of carbon stored by 300 acres of pine or fir forests.
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Bradley Guy removes metal roofing from a barn in Poolesville, Md., that was being taken down to make way for a housing development.
Courtesy: Bradley Guy
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"The reuse business is a hard one," Guy said about why he undertook the study. "Most of the stores are nonprofits. This involves a lot of volunteers and you can sell the stuff for only so much. For me, this is about searching for additional tools, what I call value tools, to find extra income. It's a way of potentially monetizing the value of an environmental benefit."
One value tool his study uncovered is the moneymaking potential of being a carbon sink, or what Guy calls the "carbon dioxide avoidance benefit." Reuse stores such as the Forklift could play their green status to an advantage by earning dollars in the existing voluntary carbon offset market. That is, as part of a far-reaching greenhouse gas balancing act, businesses or individuals with excess emissions could pay reuse stores that spew so little carbon. In addition, places such as the Forklift could benefit financially if the U.S. Congress ever crafts a federal carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system centered on greenhouse gases.
"I didn't have any preconceptions going into this study," said Guy, founder of the Building Materials Reuse Association, a trade organization for Forklift-like enterprises. "I'm sort of a gadfly. Wherever I've lived, looking up reuse stores and somehow becoming involved with them has been a vocation.
"The inside joke has always been that reuse stores should be able to make a note on each receipt reading 'By making this purchase you have avoided so many tons of emissions.' This study is getting at that."
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Meet our
Summer Outreach & Education Interns!
Angela Stewart
Hi, there. My name's Angela. I am a DC metro area native who spent her childhood playing with cows, chickens, and horses in the burbs of Virginia. I'm not sure how it began, but waste minimization became a passion of mine at an early age. In high school I cofounded my school's Recycling Club with some of my closest friends and served as Vice President. Even though it was a school of three thousand and we had the facilities, recyclables were not collected. Our club organized a student run biweekly collection team. When I began my college career, I knew I wanted to study something related to the environment but was more interested in mitigating human impact than ecosystems. After two years as an undeclared major, I chose to come home to be with my family after my Mother lost a long battle with cancer. I eventually got my Associates Degree at Northern Virginia Community College and transferred to George Mason University. Serendipitously, a new degree had just been created that catered to my specific interest: Environmental and Sustainability Studies. Choosing this course of study has drastically changed my life: I am now a farmer's market shopping vegetarian, thrift shop wearer who composts everything! I have seen both firsthand and academically how intimately tied environmental and community wellbeing are. This is just one of the many reasons I am excited to be interning with Community Forklift this summer!
Imani Lewis
My name is Imani Lewis. I am a University of Maryland senior studying communication and public relations. I first experienced Community Forklift through a campus organization called TerpCorps which led me to pursue continued Forklift experiences as a volunteer. After volunteering with Community Forklift last semester, I am excited to be a part of the Outreach and Education team as an intern this summer. One of my main interests focuses on understanding how increased education regarding green living and sustainability influences communities. My goal is to learn about the behind-the-scenes work that makes Community Forklift a successful non-profit and engage with the different members of the Forklift community. I look forward to learning and getting to know everyone this summer!
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Did you know Community Forklift sells gift cards?
They make a perfect gift for Father's Day!
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Got skills?
Want to lead workshop?
- Are you a contractor, woodworker, artist, DIY-er, or general handy-person?
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Do you reuse materials in your work or hobbies?
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Are you willing to spend a couple hours showing other Forkilft Fans the basics of what you do & how you do it?
Please email Bea(at)CommunityForklift.com if you'd like to lead a workshop, an "Ask the Expert" Q&A session, or a hands-on demonstration at the Forklift!
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CF helps sponsor 1st official
Maker Faire in the DC area!
MAKE SOMETHING AMAZING &
CHECK OUT INVENTIONS OF ALL KINDS.
Enter soon -- entries must be received by June 30, 2013!
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Know any Women in the Trades and/or Green Construction?
The Institute for Women's Policy Research has asked us to spread the word about their survey of women in the trades.
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Have you done something cool with reused materials?
Enter your project in the
2013 National Reuse Contest!
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50% off Lights at $50 or Less
Take half off all CF lights marked at $50 or less. (Sale does not apply to lights over $50, light parts, lights with missing or damaged price tags, ceiling fans, or items from our consignment partners.)
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Granite Counter of 4 Sq Ft or less at $2.50 sq ft
Take half or more off the regular price on all granite and marble counter pieces of 4 square feet or less. Make your own walkway, radiator cover, mosaic... (Sale does not apply to stone sink vanities, stone tile, wall stone, slate, or select specialty items.)
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50% off the usual price on steel studs, j-channel, and drop ceiling tracks. (Sale does not apply to angle iron, metal stock, or select specialty items.)
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50% off Hollow Core Doors
Take half off of our unframed hollow wood doors. (Sale does not include doors with missing or damaged price tags, specialty items, pre-hung hollow doors, solid wood doors, doors with glass, or metal doors.)
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'Ten for a Buck' Orphan 12"x12"Ceramic Floor Tiles
Ten unmatched 12 inch ceramic floor tiles for just a dollar - great for making mosiacs! (Sale does not include sets or matched pieces, stone floor tile, or other sizes of ceramic tile.)
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Manager's Special on Select Sewing Machines and Dressers
Look for the brightly colored special discount stickers on vintage dressers, sideboards, and sewing machine cabinets!
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June 15 and 16: T-Shirt Special! Father's Day weekend special: Take 20% off on 'Nuts about Community Forklift' T-shirts!
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We hope to see you at the warehouse soon!
Sincerely,
Your friends at Community Forklift
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