Holy SCRAP! This Portland creative reuse store is moving to the east side

Published 10:00 am Friday, March 21, 2025

Creatives, crafters, reusers, reducers, recyclers — rejoice.

SCRAP PDX, or SCRAP Creative Reuse, the nonprofit creative reuse center, is moving back to Portland’s east side this April.

With an address yet to be revealed, it’ll be located near the newly opened Literary Arts Bookstore off Southeast Grand Avenue.

Kimberly Maruska, executive director of SCRAP Creative Reuse, said she looking forward to the feeling of “when you move into a new home and have that fresh start.”

Providing accessible materials and education is central to the nonprofit’s mission. The store is focused on creative reuse — upcycling and repurposing — which uses creativity to bring a new function to an already existing item. Discarded goods are collected and offered to the public for a chance at a new life.

“If you’re familiar with Portland, a lot of people do not like to cross the river. So partially, we’re moving back to the east side, back into our community, and trying to become more accessible to the community we are trying to reach,” Maruska said.

What’s new or the same?

The space is smaller than the current Southwest Alder Street location, but it boasts a few new feature besides its location.

“You grow into the spaces that you have,” Maruska said.

Over the past 10 or so years, lots of items have been collected. Maruska said she feels this is a good opportunity to consolidate and be intentional with the space they’re using.

“I look at it very much like our environmental impact and the space in which we type out,” Maruska said.

Inside, participants will find a fully separated room designated for education, workshops, events and skill building. In its current space, only a divider is used to break the learning space away from the retail center.

There will be more windows for ample natural light and accessible parking. All of the current staff will transition to the new location.

Maruska said being back across the river has allowed them to established partnerships and connections with local organizations and businesses.

The current hours of operation will stay the same, along with the existing donation hours and processes.

How SCRAP started

It started in 1998 with a group of school teachers who needed to find a home for their leftover classroom materials.

These materials were brought to A Teacher’s Space, a resource center for Portland Public School teachers, and left them out for others to use.

In 1999, one teacher, Joan Grimm, gathered with a few peers, received a grant from the Department of Environmental Quality and was able to open a small creative reuse center.

“Our very first location started in Portland and we have a large community in Portland,” Maruska said. “We so much appreciate our community and look forward to being back on the east side, and we value so much everybody who came while we were on the west side.”

That first year it became a 501©(3) nonprofit and continued to grow.

SCRAP PDX is the flagship store, with SCRAP Creative Reuse stores in Richmond, Virginia, Ann Arbor, Michigan and Baltimore, Maryland.

About the executive director

Maruska started at SCRAP as a customer. Having living in Portland for about 18 years, she managed a print studio and was starting a printing business before her current role.

While printing was something she described as amazing, and something she loves, its environmental impact is substantial.

“There’s so much waste that goes on in printing,” she said.

Maruska said many of the printing companies she knew of weren’t using ink or papers that could be recycles, so for many years she would do collaging with the excess materials.

In essence, she was doing her own creative reuse on her own.

“At the beginning of the pandemic I wanted to change my life,” Maruska said.

She had been working to build her printing business, which was only a few years old when the pandemic hit.

“When the pandemic hit it was just one of those times where I believe a lot of people wanted to re-evaluate their life and where it was they were going and I was like, ‘You know, I just can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to contribute this way,’” Maruska said.

It was February 2021 when she formally got involved with SCRAP. Maruska was hired as a part-time administrative assistant, but she said executive leadership quickly realized she could do more.

“They said to me, ‘We’ve realized the potential of you helping out in bigger ways,’” Maruska said.

Within four months she was promoted to operations director. About one year went by, and she was again promoted executive director.

Maruska said it was a perfect fit.

“I’m very passionate about the values and mission of SCRAP,” she said.

For updates on the move, visit portland.scrapcreativereuse.org/PDX-move.

“We’re moving back to the east side, back into our community, and trying to become more accessible to the community we are trying to reach.”

Kimberly Maruska, executive director, SCRAP Creative Reuse