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Our 5th Annual Green Gift Fair  

is in Full Swing!

Open Daily through 

November and December!

 

 

• Metalwork 
• Jewelry
• Textiles and Clothing
• Eco-friendly Beauty Care
• Stained Glass Mosaics 
• Holiday crafts
• Stationery and Cards 
• Woodcraft
• Soaps and Candles 
• Toys and Baby Gear
• Housewares
• and many more!  

 

 

We've gathered dozens of the area's most creative artists and crafters to exhibit at our Green Gift Fair.  All gifts are made with reclaimed, refurbished, or other eco-friendly materials!    

 

And keep an eye on our calendar in the coming weeks -- many artists will be offering free how-to workshops and demonstrations!

 

Forklift Fan Charles looking dapper in a scarf from Upcycle Joy

  

       

Your support has made a real difference over the last 8 years: 

* Countless households and small businesses have been able to afford repairs.

*  We've been able to donate over $100,000 of materials directly to nonprofits and families in need!  

*  By reusing existing materials, you've lowered demand for natural resources, and reduced pollution from harvesting, mining, manufacturing, and shipping new products. 

*  We've created 40 green jobs!  Not only that, but the low-cost materials have allowed thousands of tradespeople to attract clients even during tough economic times.

To make a secure online, tax-deductible donation, click the button below to donate through Paypal, major credit card, or directly from your bank account.

 

OR, you can write a check.  Please make it out to Sustainable Community Initiatives, and write "Community Forklift" in the memo line.  Checks should be mailed to:  Community Forklift, 4671 Tanglewood Drive, Edmonston MD, 20781.  Please call Nancy Meyer, our Chief Operating Officer, at 301-985-5180 with any questions or concerns.  Thanks so much!

 Now hiring! 

Experienced Office Manager

Community Forklift is seeking an experienced Office Manager to work full-time. The Office Manager will be primarily responsible for the general oversight and management of the overall office administration, human relations and bookkeeping functions for an organization with more than 40 full-time, part-time and on-call employees. This is not an entry-level position, only qualified applicants will be considered. 

 

Truck Driver  

Community Forklift is seeking a full-time Truck Driver. This person will represent the organization by picking up used and surplus building materials in the DC area. Responsibilities include driving our 24-foot box truck with manual transmission. A Commercial Driver's License (CDL) is preferred. All applicants must have an excellent driving record, relevant driving experience and a current Maryland Department of Transportation medical card. If you do not have medical card, you will need a physical before you begin. Prior related driving experience is required!   

 

 

Click here to find out how to apply!

   

 Wow! Digital 3-D Wood Sculptures Turn Heads at Green Gift Fair  

Alluring sculptures that Kyle Bendle, pictured here, creates with fellow artist Brad Bolte are part of this year's Green Gift Fair at Community Forklift. The fair lasts through Dec. 29.

By Elizabeth McGowan 

Just how do they do that?

That's a familiar six-word question for Brad Bolte and Kyle Bendle. And the Washington, D.C.-based artists know it will be on the tip of the tongue of anybody spying their alluring wood sculptures at this holiday season's Green Gift Fair at Community Forklift.

The duo's answer? Teamwork. And an incredible amount of patience and experimentation.

For starters, Bendle sketches his intricate and original designs on paper before using specialized software to digitize them in three dimensions. Then, Bolte painstakingly transfers each point of that "blueprint" to the software that signals the inanimate member of their joint venture - the CNC, which is short for computer numerically controlled mill - how exactly to transfer that complex image to a block of wood.

The mill is basically a router on steroids. But its trio of axes - good ol' x, y and z for those who remember their trigonometry - aren't magic. First, Bolte has to fit the machine with the right series of carbide bits to carve out the three-dimensional curves first envisioned in Bendle's head. Bolte starts with a rough cut and refines it until reaching the desired effect.  

What finally emerges is mesmerizing. The abstract and pleasing results are what you might expect to see if Cubists wielded drill bits instead of paintbrushes.  

Raised patterns hewed into chunks of reclaimed maple, Douglas fir, oak, black walnut, cherry and mahogany vaguely resemble a topographical map. Some conjure up landscapes as diverse as the eroded Badlands of South Dakota, the layered sands of the Sahara Desert or the braided strands of the McKinley River in Alaska. But use your imagination. Others might be tornadoes, wind-whipped snowdrifts or a troupe of supple dancers in motion.  

The two Playshop entrepreneurs use bits of all shapes and sizes to craft their three-dimensional wood sculptures.

Exposing the wood's innards causes the wood's grain patterns to really pop. That texture, enhanced with a light coating of polyurethane, invites observers to employ their eyes, hands and brains. They can't help themselves.

"You can't just look, you have to engage," Bolte says, adding that art is supposed to make people think. "These pieces offer a different kind of connection to the physical world."

"Designing cool stuff makes us excited," Bendle chimes in. "We're chasing fun."

Artists Kyle Bendle, left, and Brad Bolte journeyed to Baton Rouge, La., last spring to pick up a second-hand computer numerically controlled mill that is the centerpiece of their Playshop studio.

Their version of what might be called super-advanced whittling in the computer age takes place in a two-car garage in a Glover Park alley. At the beginning of the year, they converted it into a space they've christened Playshop, the anti-workshop for this pair of adventurous, curious and talented 20-somethings. This art and design studio with a focus on digital fabrication is where they also craft offbeat signs, furniture and an ever-expanding inventory of other eclectic items. Trial and error and not fearing failure, they say, are their best teachers.

Much of the wood, including every piece they are selling at the Green Gift Fair, is harvested at the Forklift because it fits with the pair's upcycling ethic.  

Bolte discovered the Forklift during one of his deep-dive online research sessions-and bookmarked the Web site after reading about the 34,000-square foot warehouse loaded with affordable and one-of-a-kind materials.

"When we first walked in, we were like, 'Yes!'" Bendle says. "We dove in like it was a pool."