Community called to help with Habitat's Broomfield ReStore revamp

What: Flatirons Habitat for Humanity Community Work Days

When: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, April 9 and June 11

Where: Flatirons Habitat for Humanity ReStore, 6900 W. 117th Ave.

Information: ReStore General Manager Adam Baksa at 303-404-2008 or abaksa@flatironshabitat.org. You also can visit flatironshabitat.org.

One of the lesser-known aspects of Flatirons Habitat for Humanity's faith-based efforts to provide adequate housing and other support for underprivileged families in Broomfield, Boulder and the surrounding area is its ReStore. As General Manager Adam Baksa explains, the 10,000-square-foot space is a thrift store offering a variety of items with sale proceeds benefiting the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate and its projects.

"Where we expand on the thrift store concept is we try to focus on furniture, appliances, and home improvement items that people may not think they can reuse," said Baksa, manager of the Broomfield ReStore since October. "All of the money generated by the ReStore gets recycled back to (Flatirons Habitat), which is part of how we build our homes."

While Habitat regularly enlists volunteers to help with build days on housing projects, Baksa this week is looking for volunteers to help him make some improvements around the ReStore itself. Friday is the first of three Community Work Days, during which volunteers can stop by the Broomfield ReStore, tucked away just off of Main Street on West 117th Avenue, to help with reorganization efforts designed to make the store a more enjoyable place to shop. Friday's work day, which will be followed by similar days in April and June, will focus on cleaning up the store's donation center, where Flatirons Habitat's numerous community partners and supporters bring items to be sold at the store.

"We have some major projects we're trying to chip away at incrementally," Baksa said. "What we've been talking about is redesigning the sorting area. We're going to try and streamline (the space) to make it more efficient so the volunteers can get more product out."

Westminster resident Roberta Spindler has been volunteering at the Broomfield ReStore twice a week for about four years. She said she is intrigued to see how a remodel of the store's sorting room will help.

"I'm comfortable (with it the way it is)," Spindler said Tuesday. "But change is not always a bad thing."

Lisa Gills, development director for Flatirons Habitat for Humanity, said the organization's local staff identified a need for some changes at the Broomfield ReStore, and she feels Baksa is a great manager to oversee those changes.

"He has really done a great job of consolidating some of the products, making stuff more accessible and putting everything on the same floor," Gills said. "That was really important for us."

Broomfield and surrounding communities have been great supporters of Habitat for Humanity, Gills said, as evidenced by the $7,000 raised at the organization's Bowl-n-Build fundraiser Sunday at Chipper's Lanes in Broomfield. The work days at the ReStore, which include lunch and snacks for volunteers, are being made possible by grant funding from the Broomfield Community Foundation, Gills said, which speaks to the store's importance to the community.

"With the Flatirons ReStore, we view it as a community resource where local residents can shop, donate and/or volunteer," Gills said.

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