Before you recycle your old water bottles, what if I told you there was a way to turn them into plastic flower bouquets? How about making jewelry out of walnuts? A small but mighty 501(c)(3) is leaving its mark in the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood in a quirky, artistic way.

Upcycle Parts Shop is an innovative reuse arts shop that specializes in repurposing items that would normally end up in a landfill and selling them as art supplies. The idea of the shop came in 2014, when the founder, Nicole McGee, started to consider the possibility of some of her hobbies, upcycling, becoming a full-time career.

Bringing reuse art to the inner city

“I’m an artist. I had a corporate job and I was also creating things, working with my hands, ” McGee said. “I got really lit up by working with second-hand materials, and I realized how creatively interesting that was to me and there was an economy in that.”

People in the Cleveland arts community began to ask McGee to create items for them using second-hand materials, including Aladdin’s Eatery. McGee saw there was an opportunity to promote environmental sustainability and waste reduction while making a living. A trip to Durham, North Carolina, gave her the final nudge she needed to take a chance on her dreams.

“I went to my first creative reuse center in Durham called the Scrap Exchange,” McGee said. “I’m not kidding you when I tell you my knees buckled. I was so excited to see all these second-hand materials in a large place that felt like a store. I thought to myself, ‘I can do this in Cleveland. I know our city is ready for it.’”

When she returned to Cleveland, she began to have conversations with other artists and nonprofits in Cleveland. The St. Clair Superior Development Corp. expressed interest in the work McGee was doing, and assisted her with writing a grant proposal. After many months of phone calls and meetings, McGee received funding in 2014 under the St. Clair Superior Development Corp. and Upcycle Parts Shop was officially up and running.

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Building trust in a new space

Upcycle Parts Shop is located at 6419 St. Clair Ave. The owners were intentional in making sure the shop took time to get to know the area and establish trust with the residents.

Devon Fegen-Herdman is a co-founder of Upcycle along with McGee. She currently serves as president of the Upcycle executive board.

“When we got the grant funding, one of our major goals was to try and revitalize the neighborhood,” Fergen-Herdman said. “We decided to double down in the community, and in February we expanded into the storefront next door.”

“The community response has been incredible. People really love it,” Fergen-Herdman said. “As adults we rarely get to play. A lot of times you see kids come up to the table and the parents come up too and they get really into it. Sometimes the kids will walk away and the parents will stay behind to finish their crafts. Ultimately, we want people to make a new friend and connect with the community.”

They also recognize what it means for them to be white people in a majority Black neighborhood.

“St. Clair-Superior is historically an Eastern European neighborhood, and it is currently a predominantly Black neighborhood,” McGee said. “It was important for us to recognize we are new here, we have an idea, and we are setting up our shop here. We approached the residents in a humble way. We wanted to connect. The community there is incredible, the warmth and the welcome that we received was immediate and real.”

McGee recalls a time when the shop wasn’t open for business yet. They were organizing inside and overheard a family outside talking. A mom and her two children were wondering what the shop was going to be when it was finished. McGee opened the door and invited them in to see the work that had been done so far. The kids were 11 and 12 at the time and ended up working with them for the remainder of that summer. Ten years later, that family still regularly visits Upcycle. 

“That’s just a great example of the type of community we are building. We were doing the things we said we would do. Consistency is a currency of trust in a neighborhood,” McGee said. “The relationships we have built run deep because we were welcomed by them. We are here to be a business, but we are also here because we want to be in this community.”

A stampede worth of materials

Upcycle hosts and attends community festivals and workshops throughout the year. In addition to being a thrift store for crafts, they hold workshops that include creating a hands-on craft with the assistance of Upcycle staff. Some of the projects have included yarn gardens, pumpkin crafting, and bottle blossoms, which are one of the most popular crafts that Upcycle produces.

“The signature item that most people are familiar with from Upcycle are called bottle blossoms,” Fegen-Herdman said. “You take a pop bottle, cut off the bottom and top and paint them, and they turn to flowers. We’ve turned old vinyl records into alternative door hangers as well.”

“We’ve diverted so many materials from landfill in 10 years. When we weighed the materials, it was the equivalent of about 19 rhinoceroses!”

From Cleveland to New York

Kaliya Smith is the current executive director of Upcycle Parts Shop. She started at Upcycle as the program director. She held that role for a year before the board at Upcycle named her interim director. McGee has worked with Smith for years and was happy to pass the torch.

“When I met Nicole, I thought she was an amazing person and we clicked instantly,” Smith said. “I worked at the CDC, where she sat on the board. We were talking one day, and she shared that she was preparing to step down as executive director and was looking for someone to replace her.”

Eventually, Smith was offered the role of executive director. She immediately accepted.

“Kaliya is inspiring to me. I just really liked the way she worked and the enthusiasm she brought to the job,” McGee said. “This is the next chapter, and I think the organization is in good hands.”

“I’ve worked at a lot of different places, but I have never felt as much joy in those roles than I do in my work with Upcycle,” Smith said.

“The Kelly Clarkson Show” caught wind of Upcycle after seeing the shop featured on News Channel 5. The show invited Smith and the staff to fly to New York to film a segment for the show. At the end of the segment, American Greetings awarded Upcycle $10,000. 

“I was so excited and in shock,” Smith said. “We are using the award to expand our shop and the services we offer. We are also looking to bring in more staff and volunteers.”

Smith is looking forward to continuing to reach the community, one recycled item at a time.

“This neighborhood is underserved, so being here is intentional,” Smith said. “I’m just really happy to be here and looking forward to bringing more people together in this space.”

For more information, visit www.upcyclepartsshop.org