July 20th Through 26th Is National Independent Retailers Week.

July 22, 2008

SPRINGFIELD,MA. – July 21, 2008 – This is a great time to acknowledge the strong presence of our area’s independent retailers and the important impact they have on our local economy.

Here in Western Mass, many area independent hardware and building material retailers continue to thrive in our local economy along side the national chain stores. A great example of this local success is The ReStore Home Improvement Center in Springfield. The Restore provides ten full time local “green collar” living-wage jobs. Additionally, the inventory at The ReStore is harvested locally from renovations, deconstructions and surplus supply chains. For the past six years, the used and surplus building materials store has grown and expanded their local services to include ReStore Deconstruction. This “green demolition” practice creates an additional stream of locally harvested green building materials through the careful hand removal of unwanted structures.

The ReStore Home Improvement Center is an innovative non-profit enterprise with a three-fold mission:

Reuse valuable building materials
Make home improvement more affordable
Create local jobs and provide job training

The ReStore sells used and surplus building materials at low cost to help hardworking do-it-yourselfers rebuild their homes, lives and communities. The materials are donated by individuals, contractors and manufacturers who wish to see quality goods used to help their neighbors. Over 20,000 residents have been able to improve their homes and the quality of their lives and communities in ways that would have been out of their reach without the ReStore’s low-cost materials. These customers have saved a total of more than $1 million over the past five years, keeping hundreds of tons of materials out of the landfill.

The ReStore is an enterprise of the Center for Ecological Technology (CET), a non-profit community environmental organization with offices in Northampton and Pittsfield. For more information about the ReStore, residents are encouraged to stop by the store at 250 Albany Street in Springfield, visit www.restoreonline.org, or call 413-788-6900.