Get there early for best selection! We look forward to seeing you.

FROGBOX generously shares their warehouse space with OSF and has proven to be a great ally and supporter of our work. Furthermore, they deliver an environmentally-friendly service with their re-useable moving boxes and they partner with local non-profit agencies like Building Opportunities with Business to provide employment opportunities for inner-city residents. Their environmental commitment was recognized earlier this year when they co-won BC’s Best Green Business Award.

I think they have a good case for being BC’s best business, don’t you? You can cast your vote for FROGBOX here.

Fill-a-bag pricing is as follows:

grocery bag – $20/ small kitchen garbage bag $40/ garbage bag $80/ leaf bag $100

Remember, you get 10% off if you bring your own bag. We will also have a wall of high-end fabrics priced by the metre and a clearance section for truly bargain basement deals! Hope to see you there.

On October 16th we finally finished moving out of our old storage locker at Maple Leaf Storage. Many thanks to the folks at Maple Leaf for the countless bags of fabric donations they toted up to our locker over these last several months. You have shown us a lot of generosity and really helped OSF stay afloat during difficult times. With the help of super-duper volunteer Emily Hansen, we moved all of our fabric into our new space at FROGBOX. This is what it looked like after the move:

That's one big pile of stuff!

But we still had lots of junk to get rid of! We’ve taken many household donations over the last few months, and unfortunately some donors mixed quality fabric with not-so-quality dirty items and garbage Shockingly, we even found some rat traps with poison in a bag of donated fabric! Fortunately for us, Dylan Goggs of Take the Green Challenge came to our rescue. Green Challenge is an inner-city waste removal and recycling company that is operated as a social enterprise. Dylan kindly donated their services for an afternoon and saw that the storage locker got cleaned out once and for all. BIG thank-you to Take the Green Challenge and Dylan Goggs!

After that, we had yet another work party on a Tuesday evening to get the shelves set up and organize our reams of fabric in preparation for the upcoming sale. With a few board members and the help of our fabulous volunteer Lola Bryson, the room was organized in no time.

Lola, Josli & Emily with one big organized pile of stuff!

Finally we were ready to have our fill-a-bag Halloween sale on October 22nd. Natalia Nanton from eco-baby-fashion company TutuMama volunteered with us all day and tirelessly helped with everything that needed doing. And what a great turnout we had! It was one of our best sales ever. Thanks to all of you who came out to support Our Social Fabric. We expect our next sale to be on Saturday, November 26th, so start thinking about all the fabric you’ll need for Christmas and winter holiday craft projects…As usual, stay tuned for more details.

Thanks again to everyone for the generosity and hard work you’ve contributed to OSF to make our transition a success!

The new space is a really exciting change for OSF and it’s wonderful that we have so much community support to help us do it. Last Saturday we had a big work party at the storage locker to organize all the donations from the last few months, pack up the best of it, and move it to the new space. Many thanks to Patty of Pure Magnolia gowns and Kent from Patch who volunteered their time and effort to our very hasty move, and also to prospective board members Andrew and Katharine who pitched in a considerable amount of energy and showed their commitment! Thanks also to Recycling Alternative for donating a truck to us to move with in the afternoon.

Best of all, we will be able to hold sales inside our new space, which was a challenge with our previous storage locker arrangement. Check back soon to find out when our next sale will be and learn more about the new donations and inventory receiving policies we are developing.

Our Social Fabric is currently in transition. As you may know from your own experience, change can be a wonderful and welcome thing. However, it also often comes with a bit of chaos, hence the canceled sale. We are looking for (and may have found) a new, more permanent storefront space where we can keep our inventory and receive donations. More importantly it is a location we can host our sales in. The great staff at Maple Leaf Storage have always gone above and beyond for OSF and we cannot thank them enough, but we are getting too big for our locker! We are currently in conversation with a nearby business about how we might partner with them.

In the meantime we have a lot of inventory to sort and organize, we are growing our board of directors, and we are doing some strategic planning about how best to develop our programs.

We will be at the storage locker on Saturday because we are holding a Work Party to get all the fabric organized and ship shape. We would love to have a few volunteers for this day, so if you’re free between 9am and 1pm on Saturday October 1st, get in touch. Contact Emily at oursocialfabric@gmail.com if you are interested in volunteering, and thanks to those who have already signed up!

Thank you for your patience and continued interest. We look forward to keeping you informed about all the exciting changes happening at OSF!

Reds from our May 2011 fabric sale

We recycle fabric by holding monthly fill-a-bag fabric sales out of our Maple Leaf storage locker in East Vancouver. Proceeds go to maintaining the storage locker and keeping it available for donations while we grow our organization and develop related programs. The sales are fun and inclusive community events, and are a great place to network with other folks in Vancouver’s textile and creative arts industries while contributing to a great cause.

Volunteer Opportunity

We are currently seeking 3-5 volunteers to staff our upcoming fabric sale on Saturday, October 1st 2011 from 10am to 4pm.

Volunteer Duties
• Moving fabric from storage locker to sale site in the parking lot
• Setting up displays of fabric
• Assisting customers to select, price, and purchase recycled fabrics

Skills, Experience & Qualifications
• Customer service experience an asset, but not required
• Must be able to lift up to 20lbs
• Passion for textiles, recycling or both!
• Must be willing to work with people in a fast-paced, fill-a-bag-sale environment

Benefits and Recognition
• All volunteers get a free bag of the fabric of their choice
• Volunteers who participate for more than three sales can ask for a letter of reference to support them in their other endeavors

Sales happen monthly and there will be follow-up volunteer opportunities. For more info or to volunteer, contact Emily at oursocialfabric@gmail.com

More details about the Oct 1st sale coming soon. Stay tuned!

We are opening up our locker doors for another all-inclusive sale!

The rules are the same,

fill a bag

get fabric

get excited

and

make things.

We are now also accepting VISA, MC, Amex and Debit!

heck yes.

SATURDAY, MAY 28 TH

11am – 4pm

PARKING LOT

33 Commercial. (Maple Leaf Storage)

COME PLAY!!!!

Rain or shine we will sell you OOOODLES of new fabric.

oh, ps,

for those of you who think you’ve seen all we have to give, let me tell you

we just received 36 MORE BOXES

of goodies!

We also have Bolts of fabric , and some of our donations have come from

STARGATE SERIES

SUCKERPUNCH

SMALLVILLE

HUMAN TARGET

and we also Accept Visa/MC/Amex/Debit and cash
any Questions please email oursocialfabric@gmail.com