News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Friday March 14th 2025
ReUse Center Closed after 15 years
by Harvey Winje
The Reuse Center in Phillips closed on Dec. 11th, held a one week on-line auction, gave away the remains, and was ended by Dec 31st.
The Mpls. Reuse Center, which began as the first retail sales store selling reusable building materials in an urban shopping center in the United States, opened at the Hi-Lake Shopping Center on October 15, 1995. An Elder from Little Earth, Gladys Cain, opened the program with a traditional American Indian smudging and blessing followed with remarks by Senator Paul Wellstone, David Morris, city, county and state political representatives, environmental activists and community residents. This event topped off the culmination of 2 years of writing a business plan, fundraising, and conducting a pilot project in local warehouses in Phillips.
The ReUse Center did not originate from an idea of a few nor did it come from an entirely environmental perspective. Instead, it arose out of a controversy between Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis versus the Phillips Community about clearing land of 27 homes and 5 businesses where a state of the art, garbage transfer station was to be built costing 10 million dollars.… Read the rest “ReUse Center Closed after 15 years”
What are the goals for content in each Alley Newspaper?
The Alley Newspaper is not classic journalism that strives for absolute objectivity. The Alley is subjective because it is written by people who live and work in the community and their experiences in doing so.
Ever wonder how The Alley arrived at its name? It acquired the name 35 years ago to represent the honest, person-to-person conversations that happen over the backyard fences of the community whether they are figurative or actual fences. The Alley name represents the common, everyday things that occur in backyards and alleys. The front yards do not necessarily portray the day-to-day activities of the folks who live there.
The printed pages of an issue are finite and especially when we are limited to publishing only 8 to 12 pages. So we have to make choices on what goes into each issue. We have a list of topics from which we strive to have something about every month.
Like a family”'s income and expenses, The Alley”'s ability to include more of these priorities each month is dependent on income. Though The Alley is a nonprofit organization, very little of our income comes from gifts or grants. Instead, we are dependent on having a steady stream of advertisers.… Read the rest “What are the goals for content in each Alley Newspaper?”
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