Furniture Bank’s
The Furniture Workshop
Furniture Bank is pleased to announce the launch of our new Furniture Workshop program in 2015, a program funded in part by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
Working with volunteer and paid instructors, the program seeks to train Leg Up program participants in furniture repair and woodworking.
Not only will this give participants an opportunity to learn additional skills, it will also allow Furniture Bank to divert more furniture from the landfill and put items back into our donation stream.
If you are an upholsterer, woodworker or furniture designer and would like to be involved in this project, please contact us via email at getinvolved@furniturebank.org.
Why A Furniture Workshop?
The Problem
There are over 400,000 tonnes of waste being thrown out in the GTA every year (source: City of Toronto Solid Waste department).
Furniture Bank already diverts around 1,500 tonnes of unwanted furniture that would otherwise end up in landfills – last year, our furniture pickup service collected over 45,000 items of used furniture. Further, where items of furniture that we collect are not in a good enough condition for re-donation to our clients, we do our best to salvage the raw materials through our recycling program. In 2014 we recycled over 4500 kgs of cloth and fabrics, 2000 kgs of electronics and 50,000 kgs of metal.
We want to do more. Specifically, we want to bring down to a minimum the amount of waste we have to send to landfill sites. If we have a process whereby we can repair furniture, we will be able to divert even more furniture away from waste sites and serve more of our clients.
The Solution
Through the creation of a furniture workshop, Furniture Bank will provide furniture repair and upholstery services to both individuals and businesses across the GTA while teaching youth a valuable trade.
This will allow us to re-insert damaged pieces of furniture into our donation stream while providing an easy and socially conscious solution, helping the City of Toronto reach its goal of zero waste!
While a number of furniture disposal and repair options exist, our program would be unique given its skills development and training focus. We will do this by expanding our current Leg Up employment program to include a furniture repair stream.