Swap Shop going strong three years now

Norwood Resident and Chair of the Planning Board Debbie Holmwood started the Norwood Swap Shop down by the Highland Cemetery about three years ago, and already it’s been serving several purposes.

Holmwood said she was always reticent about using the term “swap,” as that implies a one-for-one trade. That’s not the case, and residents are encouraged to come and drop stuff off or pick it up as they want/need.

“You can bring as much as you want, and we will take it,” she said. “If it’s broken, we can’t take it, but if you have a truckload of reusable stuff, you can drop it off here. So I think we’re helping out the dump guys here, who, by the way, have been great. They’ve put up with my shenanigans – I’m always over picking stuff out of the crusher or yelling at them, ‘Hey! Grab me that!’”

Holmwood said they are trying to get discarded, working items to people who can use them. She had a pretty simple tag line:

“Someone paid money for this, and now you can have it for free,” she said.

In the first 18 months of the Swap Shop, Holmwood said they were able to save 118 tons of trash from the dump. And that’s another purpose: keeping useful items out of the waste stream. It also saves the Town about $100 a ton, so that’s about $11,800 saved just in the first year-and-a-half. She said though they’re saving the Town money and offering anything someone may want to take for free, she emphasized that the entire operation is volunteer and no funds are being used to operate the Swap Shop.

“Everybody who’s a regular junker loves it and we get really good feedback,” she said. “We’re all volunteers and no taxpayer dollars are being used for this. So when someone asks, ‘Do you work here?’ I say, ‘No.’ We all give up our Saturdays and we go up there and stand in the heat or cold – lovingly – to help those who need it.”

Holmwood said they get a lot of volunteers, but they can be tertiary and more are always welcome. She said high schoolers who need volunteer hours can come and get them at the Swap Shop.

“Some of them love it, some don’t, but I need more volunteers,” she said.

The work is basically moving things around. All items need to be packed before they can be displayed and vice versa, so heavy lifting is required.

Holmwood said the shop is currently operating on winter hours, which is every first Saturday, and so the next shop will be on Feb. 7 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“Right now, the schedule is erratic,” she said. “If it’s raining or pouring, we can’t open because you can’t take everything outside in the rain, because then it really is trash!”

The shop also doesn’t just rely on junkers. Holmwood said New Life in Walpole has taken five truckloads of furniture to help those who recently experienced homelessness furnish their living spaces. She said they get leftover materials for home improvement that contractors come and pick up, and one guy comes in to take as many skis as he can.

“He takes the skis cuts them up and makes them into Adirondack chairs,” she said. “We’ve also got a whole sports shed.”

She said they get all kinds of items donated.

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“An IV drip pole, you know, for holding an IV bag, and it got taken right away!” she said with a laugh. “We had a beautiful canoe, and we get a lot of stuff where we don’t know what they are. We get a lot of toys for dogs to test their intelligence, which makes me giggle. I mean, I think it’s a little wacky to spend money on plastic right? They’re smarter than we are, I know that. We’re feeding them, picking up their poop and letting them sleep on our beds!”

Holmwood said the Town has used some of the donated items as well. She said Santa’s Sleigh this year had several items, including Santa’s bag, the Christmas tree on the float, and several furnishings were all found at the Shop. She noted one tree they used for Breakfast with Santa was a particularly good find.

“We plugged it in and it worked and it was like a $300 tree!” she said. “And we found it at the dump.”

Holmwood said as an organizer, the main thing to remember is that almost anything can be reused, and she encourages volunteers to figure out how that can happen.

“I’m loud and mouthy, and some of the volunteers are great, and some like to come up to me and tell me ‘This is garbage,’ and I tell them, ‘Everything that comes through here is garbage!’” she said with a laugh. “It’s our job to take it.”

There are restrictions for what you can donate, but the general guideline is that if it works, they will likely take it. For a full list of rules and updated times, go to https://tinyurl.com/2s4jnd75